Improvements
by TremendouslyMental
Summary: Luka's lifelong dream is to become a singer, but her shy tendencies conflict with the diva lifestyle. Miku is cold and brash, and strives to be the best at whatever she tries her hand at. After Luka is recruited by Crypton, she gets the oppourtunity to work with her perfect idol, Miku. Needless to say, it doesn't go as smoothly as she hopes... T for language.
1. 39 More Sales

The girl stared at disbelief at the computer screen in front of her. Japan's official music chart for the best-selling single of the week was pulled up on the screen. Teal eyes bore into the song at number two, before flickering to the shaking, sweating manager at the back of the room, who was trying to subtly inch towards the door before the diva inevitably exploded. Her eyes went back to the screen, and stared at the single that beat her out by a mere thirty-nine sales.

Thirty-nine sales.

Thirty-nine. 3-9. _Mi-ku._

 _How_ fucking _ironic._

She couldn't hold it in anymore.

"How in the _fucking_ world did this random bitch no-one's ever even heard of beat _me_ , Hatsune Miku, the most talked-about idol in the whole of Japan, in the charts?"

Said idol growled out her words at such a soft volume that her manager wouldn't have been able to hear her even if he was stood within three feet of her. He gulped before shakily speaking, anticipating another round of rants from the teal-haired princess.

"...Miku-hime-sama… could you r-repeat your s-sentence for me, p-please? I-I didn't quite c-catch it the first time…" His sentence faded out, and the man flinched at his own use of her first name. _That_ would surely be the end of him.

Eyes gone blurry with rage looked over the monitor and leered at the man in front of her, causing him to have to grab the wall for support. "I said, how did this pink slut here sell more singles than _me_?" hissed the vexed teenager, her teal eyes still staring hard into the older man's brown ones. "You planned this out. You said that, and I quote, 'There's no way anyone can beat you! Besides, the whole country loves you anyway! Even if we released the song on the same week as another star did, they'd buy yours over theirs!' Since you were _so_ sure I'd bag the top spot, how can you explain _this_?" Miku spat out the words venomously, mocking her manager. It seemed she was too caught up in her rage to notice his small slip-up. She continued to glare at him while waiting for an answer.

The manager swallowed again, then spoke. "U-uh, well… We didn't know that she would be received this well, a-and the PR team said that they made her single release low-key, and that they didn't expect the song to be this big a hit-" Miku cut off the rambling manager with a raised perfectly-manicured hand.

"Wait… what do you mean, 'the PR team said that they made her single release low-key?' Since when did we start advertising independent artist's songs?" questioned Miku, her previous anger replaced with genuine curiosity at her manager's words. Miku saw the manager's eyes widen, and, even though she didn't think it was even possible, he started shaking and sweating even more.

"You… You d-didn't know…? The boss… h-he signed her a f-few weeks a-ago…" the manager mumbled, still wary of another tantrum from the hot-headed teen, but also confused as to how she didn't know about the new singer. "R-remember… there was a party the night she was signed…?"

The only thing that changed about Miku's posture were her teal eyebrows, which furrowed.

The manager continued speaking. "You know… the twins got hold of some of Meiko's sake and got really drunk and rolled over Leon's car with their road roller, remember?" There's no way she couldn't remember that - the twin's drunk slurs about how sexy they thought everyone in the Crypton household was on a scale of 1-10 was quite hard to forget.

The room was filled with silence for a few seconds before Miku's steely expression faded into a neutral one, with a hint of hostility. A frustrated sigh escaped her lips before she spoke.

"...I only got back from my worldwide tour a week and a half ago."

The manager let out a breathy laugh. _Yes!_ , he thought, _I'm off free!_ He was in the middle of an internal victory dance when the teal-haired teenager bought him out of his happy trance.

"Why wasn't I informed of this new arrival through email or something while I was on the tour? Or when I got back? And how come I haven't seen her around yet? She _must_ have come in to record this _brilliant_ song at some point, right?" Miku was starting to get angry again, and her manager could tell. He'd been with her for a good year or so, and, with the sheer amount of emotions he'd dealt with from her, he learnt how to recognize the little signs that told how she actually felt, no matter how well she thought she could hide them.

He smiled at her balled fists on the desk before speaking. "I thought shachō-san told you when you visited his office when you got back... "

Miku grunted with frustration. "Fine then. Tell me about this new singer. I expect to hear all the details you know about her right this moment. But, before that, get me a copy of her song. I want to see how that bitch managed to beat me in my own game… Oh, and get a couple of leeks and a bottle of vegetable juice. This 'Megurine Luka' bitch is really stressing me out..." Miku let out a small sigh before returning her gaze to the chart on the laptop in front of her.

Her manager had to physically restrain himself from giggling at Miku's angry mode. No-one would ever guess that the short, scrawny (don't tell her he thought that) seventeen-year-old girl known internationally for her beautiful voice that suited genres from the cutest J-pop radio anthems to bass-fueled rock hits and her polite, good-girl image would even _think_ about uttering words like he heard her spit when she was angry. And they _definitely_ wouldn't expect her to think of violence as a good means to get people to listen to her when she got _that_ angry. Luckily, the manager had only ever experienced this particularly aggressive side to Miku once during his career as Miku's manager and would gladly live on without ever having to experience it again.

The manager stood there with a dazed grin on his face, one hand on the door handle, other flopped to his side, reminiscing about that one time when Miku made her beefy bodyguard cry and, consequently, resign from his post, when Miku realized the manager hadn't even stepped out of the door yet.

"Well, what are you waiting for? This bitch to get another song sale and beat me more than she already has?" yelled Miku a little too loud for the small room, not averting her eyes from the computer screen before her.

The manager just laughed and walked out of the room, not ready to tell Miku that he'd drunk the last bottle of vegetable juice in the building that morning. He'd already faced her wrath for once that day, which was once more then enough.

Before he closed the door, he heard a certain tealette grumbling about how stupid it was that "this pink bitch got thirty-nine sales more than her, which was unfair because thirty-nine was _her_ number."

He gave her a look, noticing how much she liked using the word 'bitch' to refer to Megurine-san. _Oh well,_ he thought as he pulled the door shut behind him, _as long as she doesn't call her than when she meets her tomorrow for the duet…_

* * *

 **Edited 5th January 2017: grammar fixes, words changed for suitability, removed cringey author's note ':D**


	2. The Audition

**AN:** I've managed to update this earlier than I thought I would... though, I'm still writing it at midnight... meh XD

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Vocaloid or the song 'Interviewer' by Kuwagata-P (a really good song if you haven't heard it!).**

* * *

 _A few weeks earlier…_

The alarm blared from its spot on the bedside table. Within two seconds, a pale hand shut it off with a groan. The hand lingered there for a few seconds, before the hand's owner sat up.

"Ugh… Why is the sun so bright?"

The girl rubbed her tired eyes and let out a big yawn, then got up from her soft, warm bed, and made her way out of her bedroom. Crossing her fingers, she walked over to the bathroom door, hoping that no-one else had managed to sneak their way in there before she had the chance to. She really, _really_ needed to get a shower today, and she needed to do it quickly, as she had to get to the Crypton building by noon for her audition. She crossed her fingers, mumbled a small wish, then opened her eyes.

The door was closed.

She almost collapsed from disbelief. She _swore_ she could hear three different snoring voices coming from their respective bedrooms…

Sighing, the annoyed teen knocked on the door.

"How long are you gonna be? I have to get over to Crypton in-" she glanced at the ancient grandfather clock at the end of the hallway, "-less than two hours! Crap, I woke up so late! Hurry up, whoever's in there!"

She paced around outside the bathroom, occasionally banging on the door and screaming pleas for its occupant to speed up. She looked at the door longingly, cursing whoever was taking their sweet, sweet time in the bathroom. It was most likely her brother, she guessed; but, although he loved annoying her, like any older brother would, he wasn't _that_ mean as to make her late for something that she had been so excited for.

The angry girl finally had enough. She went completely, utterly ballistic on the door, hitting it, kicking it, doing everything to make it open without actually touching the door handle itself.

"LUKI! I SWEAR TO GOD. THIS ISN'T FUNNY. GET OUT OF THAT FLIPPING BATHROOM RIGHT THIS MOMENT BEFORE I CUT OFF ALL YOUR HAIR AND STICK IT TO YOUR-"

Two doors burst open behind her at the same time, making a painfully loud sound when they bounced off of the walls. Three pink-haired, hunched over figures crawled out of the rooms, and gave the suddenly scared girl the most demonic, _dirtiest_ look that she had ever been given in her whole, short life of nineteen years.

"Luka," one of them, a man with long, pink hair, growled at said girl. "What. Do. You. Think. You. Are. Doing." The man's voice remained at the same volume, and at the same pitch, making the question sound like a statement.

"...I-I though Luki was in there…" muttered the terrified teen, before pushing down on the handle to the bathroom. The door drifted open slowly, as if showing her how much of a fool she had been to not even attempt to open it like a normal person. Luka's eyes widened, and she stared at the door in disbelief. Everyone was silent for a few seconds, the three rudely-awoken people glaring daggers at the confused girl. She was about to run into the bathroom to save herself the wrath of her parents in the morning when Luki beat her to it.

He ran into the bathroom, blowing a raspberry into Luka's face as he closed the door, then locked it with a 'click'. Luka looked at the door, then at her still angry parents, then just slid down the wall in defeat.

"Sorry…" she mumbled, deciding to use her ten years of drama lessons to make her parents let her off the hook. "It's just… This audition means so much to me, and if I was late to it and that led to them not even considering me for the job because I wasn't punctual, then I'd be heartbroken…" Luka sheepishly got up, brushed herself off and started walking back to her room, not daring to meet her parent's eyes, for fear they'd notice her facade.

Luka and Luki's mother and father were the President and Vice President of Luka's father's great-great-great-grandfather's company, Megurine Corporation. The company started out small, but soon expanded to dealing with people and products from all four corners of the earth. Their primary business was musical instruments, in particular guitars, but all of their products were of the highest quality and made with care.

They expected one of their children (the one that wasn't irresponsible... in other words not Luki) to take over the business when their father died. Consequently, they kept an eye out for Luka more than Luki, making sure she was polite, civil and kind to all those she would come across. This plan was slightly disrupted Luka figured out that she wanted to be a pop star and found a way to do it. Luka's parents agreed only to the pop-star-diva business if she agreed that she would drop the music thing if the company needed her. Luka happily obliged to this contract.

"Luka… wait," she called out, her tone of voice soft and caring, completely unlike what Luka's father had been like just minutes before. Luka froze, then walked around her door so that her mother could see her when she talked to her. Keeping her head bowed, she spoke.

"...Yes, mother?"

Her mother sighed before speaking. "We are sorry. We know how hard you've worked for this audition, and we realize how important it is to you. Therefore, I think our anger at you was misplaced, and that your father was a little bit too harsh on you before. All I ask from you is that, next time something like this happens again, you check the door if you hear no reply from inside. You know how your father can be - when he wakes up at midnight, he forgets all the house rules and such," said the older lady with a smile, causing Luka to let out a breathy laugh out of relief.

"Yes, mother. I understand. Next time I will try and remember what you have told me today. Thank you for your kind words," thanked Luka with a bow and a smile, before turning back to go to her room to wait for Luki to leave the bathroom. While she was waiting, she pulled out the papers with the song lyrics she was going to sing and practiced for her audition. Everything needed to go right. She needed this job. She was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to carry on living if she went there, froze up in front of all the important people and ended up losing to a little nine-year-old girl like she did last time. Because being trash-talked in front of your elders by a seemingly-angelic nine-year-old was not one of Luka's proudest moments.

Luka shuddered at the memory, before returning back to her song lyrics. She was about to run through the song once again when Luki called out to her.

"Luka! Bathroom's free!" he yelled, before waddling off into his bedroom. Luka yelled a quick "I'm going!" then raced into the bathroom before anyone could sneak their way in before she could. In there, she stripped off her clothes, threw them into the dirty pile Luki already started in the corner, then jumped into the shower.

After a quick five-minute shower, Luka turned off the water, wrapped a towel around her body, then walked back into her bedroom. As she walked in, she sent a passive glance in the clock's direction. 11:34am. It took a few seconds for the time to register in Luka's mind. When it finally did, Luka went into panic mode.

"...Crap."

She raced into her bedroom and pulled the clothes out of the wardrobe she had prepared the night before. Hastily, she chucked them on, then plugged her expensive hair straighteners and hair dryer into the wall socket near her mirror. While the straighteners were heating up, she got to work on drying her hair. Every thirty seconds or so, she would stop drying it and check how dry it was, cursing her hair for being so long. This only made it take longer to dry her mass of sakura hair.

"God… Why didn't I notice the flipping time?" grunted the annoyed teenager. Luka was usually much more organised and good at time-management than this; and to have something like this happen to her on a day as important as this day was! Luck was clearly not on her side.

After a good fifteen minutes of stopping and starting the hair dryer, her hair was finally dry enough to be straightened. She sprayed some of her "magical mist" over her hair, that would prevent it from being damaged by the heat - she knew these things never really worked, but she could never be too careful when it came to her precious pink locks - and then ran the straighteners through her hair, making her previously wavy, slightly messy hair look downright beautiful by anyone's standards. Luka smiled at her own reflection, tidied away her papers and prepared her arguments to get someone to drive her to the Crypton building.

* * *

"Thanks Luki!" chirped Luka, opening the door of the red car. Originally, Luka was going to get her mother to drive her, but since her and Luka's father had been called out to work unexpectedly ("On our one day off, they actually need us, but when we are already there, there's nothing for us to do!" was one of her father's complaints), they told Luki to drive her. And since Luki didn't want to face the wrath of his parents, in particular his father, who was feeling a bit sour after his rather rude awakening in the morning and about the fact that work called him on his paid day-off, he quickly agreed and allowed Luka into his treasured car with open arms.

"Nah, Luka, you owe me one…" uttered Luki, slouching into the leather car seat.

"Hey, you were the one who agreed to drive me! Don't look so upset about it! Besides, you get to spend more time with the wonderful person that is _me_ -"

"Your audition was supposed to start twenty-five minutes ago."

"..."

"..."

"...Crap."

"Yep."

"..."

"I'd run if I were-"

Luki didn't even get to finish his sentence before Luka ran off in the direction of the towering, thirty-storey building that was Crypton's headquarters. He just sighed, before pulling the car out and heading back home.

 _That sister of mine… I don't know how she manages to be such a pain in the ass sometimes._

* * *

A panting Luka arrived at the desk of the luxurious lobby of the Crypton Tower, the tallest, fanciest, most expensive building within a good ten miles or so. Every single person was wearing designer suits or other business-y type clothes that probably cost more than Luka's new smartphone. Which was why it came as a surprise that the receptionist, as well as everyone else close enough to see Luka and her less-than-fancy clothes, didn't even bat an eyelid at her odd attire, which consisted of a pair of light skinny jeans, a white blouse and a pair of blue headphones around her neck and some sneakers, not to mention her bright pink hair that would make anyone stand out from the crowd.

She stopped for a moment, caught her breath, then asked the lady at the desk her question.

"Uh… can you please tell me where the auditions for the new Vocaloid singer are taking place?" Luka wasn't good with strangers, and was wondering as to whether she had come off as rude. She certainly didn't want to seem like that - this receptionist could actually be good friends with someone judging the contest, and she figured it would do more harm than good if she told the judge that the person they are considering hiring was really rude. This one little thing could ruin it all for her.

Luckily, the receptionist just smiled at her and told her to go to the seventeenth floor. Luka thanked her, then made her way over to the elevator. She pressed the button, waited patiently for it to arrive, then, when it opened, stood to the side to let the people out, then walked in. The doors started closing, and Luka took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. _Relax, Luka, Relax… It's not the end of the world if you're not successful in this audition, there's surely gonna be plenty more, only those jobs aren't going to rake in as much money for you, not like the money matters-_

"WAIT!" shouted a man with short, spiky black hair in a grey suit, that looked slightly casual while still adhering to the unspoken dress-code of expensive business attire. He was running towards the elevator Luka was in, so Luka decided to be polite and stick her foot between the elevator door, which were closing abnormally slowly.

The doors started opening again, still going at the stupidly slow pace they closed at, and the man panted a thank you to Luka.

"No problem, sir." said Luka, smiling. _I really hope this man has some power in this audition_ , thought Luka, ' _cos he might think I'm kind and that I deserve the job…_

The man stood there, hunched over, heaving in breath after breath. Luka was reminded of her earlier state, when she had just come in to building and she was at the receptionist's desk.

"Uh… Which floor are you going to?" asked Luka as the doors started their slow close once again.

The man took in one final deep breath, ran a hand through his hair and stood up straight. The first thing Luka noticed is that he was really tall. And by that, she meant _really_ tall. He looked like a man from an advert she saw on the TV once...

"I'm going to floor seventeen. Sorry for that display before, by the way," apologized the man, and Luka turned to press the button before realizing that she was heading to the same floor.

The man continued speaking. "I'm supposed to be judging the audition for the potential new Vocaloid, but the train had issues, and it was delayed by a whole hour, which has got to be a new record or something," complained the man, who ran his hand through his hair again and sighed. "But where are my manners, I'm Yamada Ryo," introduced the man, who then handed Luka his card. Luka quickly glanced at it then stuffed it in her pocket.

"I'm… Megurine Luka…" said Luka, standing there awkwardly.

"Nice to meet you, Megurine-san! Tell me, what brings you to the Crypton Tower? Because you certainly don't look like you usually come here," said Ryo, gesturing to Luka's clothes, making her blush.

"Yeah… I'm here to audition for the spot as the new Vocaloid," said Luka nervously. Her mind drifted back to what the man said earlier. Didn't he say he was judging the contest…?

"Ah, I should have guessed," said the man, crossing his arms, "Well, I think you've got a good chance, as you've got the weird hair color ("No offence," said Ryo, to which Luka replied, "No, it's fine,") and, if your singing voice is anything as melodic as your talking voice, the other judges would surely love you! Also, you're polite. Other people your age, which I'm guessing is about eighteen, would have ignored me, but you were so kind as to hold the elevator for me!" rattled off Ryo to Luka.

Luka carried on standing there awkwardly, scanning her brain for a reply that wouldn't make her sound rude, however, she couldn't think of one. She had never been complimented by anyone that much in such a small space of time, let alone a stranger, and, therefore, didn't know how to reply.

After a good thirty seconds or so of silence, in which the elevator managed to climb a miraculous four floors (Luka would've thought a modern building like Crypton Towers in a technologically-advanced country like Japan would, at the very least, have speedy elevators) Luka replied.

"...Thanks," was Luka short and simple reply, and she dearly hoped it would suffice.

"No problem!" was the man's just as short and simple reply, and the elevator fell silent once again. Luka couldn't tell if the silence was awkward or if it was comfortable, and, even though she wanted to ask the man a lot of questions, she stayed silent, for fear of breaking the seemingly calm atmosphere.

The elevator continued its slow climb up to the seventeenth floor, taking its sweet, sweet time. Every few seconds or so, Luka would look towards the man to see how he was doing, and every time he would have this sort of dazed look on his face.

Luka was curious. _Who knows?_ she thought, _he could be thinking about some funny story concerning one of Crypton's current idols, like Kaito, or Meiko, or Rin and Len, or maybe even Miku herself! Heck, this guy could be her manager for all I know!_

Luka was about to ask when the man started talking. "You know Miku, right?" he asked, turning towards Luka, the dazed expression still of his face.

"Of course! Who doesn't know who she is?" exclaimed Luka, a little too enthusiastically for the small space that was the elevator. At her enthusiasm, Ryo just smiled.

"Yeah, I'm her manager, and one time she managed to make her bodyguard- Oh, we're here." The manager was cut off by the sound of the doors of the elevator opening.

Luka's shoulders slumped. She wanted to hear this story about Miku and the bodyguard! What could have Miku done to make the manager go into a haze? And why did the elevator decide to speed up just when something interesting was going on?

Ryo walked out of the elevator and gestured at Luka to follow.

"Come on then! I don't think the competition would have started yet, mainly because I'm not there yet and I - not trying to sound egotistical here - am the person with the most influence," said the manager, puffing his chest out a little. Luka smiled, and followed after the happy manager.

"Let's go, then."

* * *

Luka was bored.

It was now almost half past three, which meant that Luka had been sat there, in that same, monochrome blue room, for almost two hours, with only herself to talk to. And she couldn't even do that for fear of the other people in the room giving her funny looks.

Earlier on, a random guy with long, purple hair came and sat next to her, and tried to flirt with her. Luka acted like she was listening while trying to show him that she wasn't interested in him, which was hard to do with the amount of questions he kept asking her, even with Luka's excellent acting skills. Thankfully, just as she was thinking of screaming at him to get lost, he was called to do his audition. She didn't know how much longer she could have lasted with him sat there next to her.

She heard someone walk into the room and cough lightly, causing everyone to turn to the person, except for Luka.

"Can Meg-" started the man with the clipboard.

Luka's heart stopped. As soon as she heard the 'Meg-' part, she got herself ready to jump up, wow the judges and become the best singer Crypton had ever employed.

Her inner pep-talk faded into nothingness when she heard the crew member finish their sentence with "-poid Gumi come over, please?"

A girl with a pair of red goggles nestled in her Christmas-tree green hair got up and walked towards the man, who opened the door to let her into the room, just like he had with the other million or so people before Gumi entered the room.

Luka sighed, and swept the room around her with her eyes, desperate to know how much longer she was stuck there for. To her surprise, she was the last one in the room. She smiled to herself. _Save the best for last, eh?_

Seeing as she was the only one in the room, and the door leading to the area where the auditions were taking place was firmly shut, Luka decided to sing her song out loud to herself, even if she only had time to do it once, if not to see if she could remember the lyrics well then to warm up her voice. Besides, the last time she had talked had been about an hour before, and it was only to try and get that Kamui guy off her back.

Luka couldn't see a guitar around her (she crossed her fingers and hoped that they lived up to the promises on the flyer during the actual audition) so she sung the song she had written about how she felt when she was younger, Interviewer, a cappella.

She started the song, and all the memories of her less-than-happy childhood came flooding back to her. All the times _she_ had tormented her, all the times _she_ had made her feel worthless, all the times _she_ had driven her to…

 _No_ , thought Luka, shoving those nasty memories to the back of her mind while starting the chorus, _moping_ _over what happened won't get rid of the scars_ she' _s given me, both mental and physical…_

Luka continued the song, trying to keep the memories from getting to the front of her brain, but, despite her efforts, they settled themselves quite comfortably in the middle of her mind. She kept her head bowed, eyes staring at the grain of the wood of the floor beneath her, concentrating hard on the song, even though she knew her posture wasn't ideal. Only when she got to the last chorus with the different lyrics did she manage to finally push the memories back. When she decided to stand up for herself, things went much better than she thought they'd go. She only hoped that she wouldn't ever have to see _her_ again, because it could go a bit wrong for her…

The song finished, and Luka released a breath she didn't notice she had been holding in. Still looking at the floor, she pulled out her phone and looked at it. Almost four o'clock.

 _Damn_ , thought Luka, twirling the phone about in her hands, _that Gumi girl is almost as slow as that elevator…_

Luka sighed, and threw her phone up into the air in front of her, readying her hands to catch it. Though, this idea went out of the window when she noticed there was a small crowd of about thirty or so people staring at her with shocked looks on their faces, congregated near the door all the singing hopefuls had went through.

Luka's (latest, brand-spanking new, 80 000 yen) phone went flying from her hand, before, to Luka's terror, ricocheting screen-first off of a metal, sharp, pointy table corner and landing on the floor with a thud. A horrified expression took over Luka's face. She looked from the phone to the mass of people near the door, then back to the phone, before hesitantly walking over and picking it up delicately, like it would shatter if she was too rough with it. After a quick peek at the (thankfully) undamaged phone screen, Luka let out a sigh of relief, and it seemed the crowd did as well.

After a couple of seconds of silence, with Luka just touching her phone like she couldn't believe that screen wasn't shattered into a million pieces and the crowd giving her funny looks while she did it, someone walked out and coughed into their hand.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" asked the manager from the elevator earlier. Luka couldn't recall his name… was it Ryu?

"If we could all return to the stage please, so we can let this last person have her audition, I would be grateful, and I'd imagine she would be too," said the manager, causing everyone to file out, whispering things from "wow she sounded so good" to "wow I can't believe her phone screen didn't crack". Luka stood was still on her knees with the phone in her hand, just watching all the people leave. _Wow_ , she thought, _how are so many people fascinated by a phone screen not cracking? Don't they know, it's made of that fancy new Grizzly Glass!_

Luka kept wondering about the secrets behind the Grizzly Glass while the room emptied, leaving only Luka and the man ( _was his name Ryu or was it Ryo…?_ ) to fill the silence.

The manager eventually broke it.

"...When can you start?"

Luka's head shot up. "...Sorry?" said the confused teen. He couldn't be serious… all he heard was her singing the song in a room that could have made her voice sound much better than it actually was.

"I said, when can you start? In other words, I'm offering you the job," explained the manager.

"..." Luka was shocked. Sure, she knew she was good, but she didn't think she was that good as to get a spot as a part of one of the biggest, most successful group in the whole of Japan without an audition.

"...Well? It that a yes or a no?" questioned the manager. One could tell he was very excited, to the point of impatience.

"Uh… don't I need to sign paperwork and stuff like that-"

"Well, of course, but I need to know if you might actually take the job before I go and print off all the paperwork," said the manager, running a hand through his black hair. "We can't waste all that printer ink and paper for something that might not even happen, you know!"

Luka smiled, then nodded. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure my parents will agree to letting me work here," said Luka, the smile on her face growing.

"That's excellent! Then, I'll need you to follow me to pick up the papers. I'll even help you to your car, if you need me to!" offered the manager. Luka was slightly worried about just how much paper she would need to get her parents to sign, but thought of something more pressing than the signing the papers themselves - how she could get them home without dropping or losing them on the train.

"Ah, but I have to take the train home…" sighed Luka, picturing all the things that could go wrong with the papers that decided her future.

"Oh, that's no problem. We'll just arrange for a limo to take you back if there's no-one from home to pick you up," said the manager, like the limo wasn't a big deal.

Luka stared at the manager. "A… limo?"

"Yeah. Don't look so shocked, let's go!" With that, the eccentric manager walked off towards a door opposite to the one where the large crowd was gathered.

Luka almost forgot about the people waiting in there, expecting a performance from her. She didn't feel like voicing the issue, though, so she didn't mention it. She already got the job - they'll be hearing her singing a lot more now, that's for sure.

The door slammed shut behind the manager, and Luka noticed she had drifted off into Luka Luka Land. After a short run, she managed to catch up with him, and prepared herself for the massive stack of paperwork she would have to get her mother to sign when she got home.

* * *

Luka was sat at the kitchen table with her mother, signing the abominable stack of paper that was her contract. They had managed to read through and sign a third of the papers in an hour and a half, which was what Luka considered a good pace. She was busy scrawling her signature at the bottom of what seemed to be the millionth piece of paper that day when her mother called her from across the table.

"Luka, darling… You never mentioned that you would get to do a duet with Miku if you won this competition!" exclaimed Luka's mother. One wouldn't think it just by looking at her, but Luka's mother was very into what was considered 'young people's music'.

Luka snorted. "Heh, yeah right, like they'd let an amateur like me do a duet with a goddess like her…" disregarded Luka with a wave of her right hand, while her other hand continued signing paper.

"No, dear, look! It says, "Megurine Luka will have the opportunity to release two singles, one of her own and another with Hatsune Miku, and, providing that said singles are successful, she shall be offered a permanent place at CFM." Luka's mother shoved the paper in Luka's face, just to show her she didn't make it up.

Taking the paper from her mother, Luka snorted again. "No mother, it says that I get to- Holy tuna, it does say I'm doing a duet with Miku!"

Her mother smiled at her and nodded, almost as excited as Luka was, but containing it.

It took a few seconds for the words on the paper to properly register in Luka's mind.

"MOTHER! I'M DOING A DUET WITH MIKU!" screamed Luka.

* * *

 **AN:** See... told you it would be longer! Though, I didn't think I'd make it three times longer... oh well.

I was aiming to make this chapter about 3,000 words, then ended up getting to ~4,500 before I realized I was making it too long, then ended up forcing myself to stop at ~5,000 words. I was originally going to make this chapter lead up to the point where Luka and Miku met, but that would make it ~15,000 (and I'm not even exaggerating there).

Thanks for reading, and please review! I love reading them! Also, don't forget to follow/favourite the story (if you think it is worthy) or maybe even me if you like what I'm doing here! It encourages me to write faster!

See you next time! :D

 **Edit 28-02: Attempted grammar fixes, but I still feel like I've missed some... meh**


	3. The President of Crypton

**AN:** Yep... I'm back... And I'm still uploading this at midnight! :D

 **Disclaimer: I _still_ don't own Vocaloid. (Meh I can't think of anything fun to say so... meh)**

* * *

The next day, Luka went with her mother to the Crypton building to drop off all the paperwork.

"Luka, dear! I can't believe that you are going to release a single for the whole world to listen to!" exclaimed Luka's mother on the ride there, almost swerving into the car next to hers in excitement.

"Uh, yeah, Mother, but if you don't concentrate on the road, then I might not stay alive long enough to actually record the song-" started Luka, but then her mother cut her off.

"Oh yes! You are recording the song soon! Do you think they'll let you record the track yourself, or do you think that they'll have a special band there to do it for you?" wondered Luka's mother.

Luka hesitated before speaking again, sensing that her mother would stop her from speaking yet again. "...I'm going to try and persuade them to let me record it myself-"

"Dear, then you simply _must_ use some of our instruments! To think, if this single is successful all around the world, and you use the fine products of Megurine Corporation to record it, business will boom! And then, imagine this, yours and Luki's futures will be secured, and the family business will be able to go on for decades- no centuries, more! Oh, just imagine it, Luka, imagine the greatness…"

Luka tuned her mother out. She did care about the business and all, but when her mother started mentioning the future, it was hard to stop her. To make it seem like she was still paying attention, she nodded and added in little comments like "is that so?" and "that's excellent, Mother", while, in reality, she was off in her own little world, thinking of how life will change when she starts at Crypton.

First off all, when her mother showed her that piece of paper that said she would be doing a duet with Miku in addition to her solo single, it said she'd be offered a permanent place at Crypton if both singles were well received. The flyer said that it was an audition for a permanent job, with a steady income and multiple chances to record multiple songs, not a one-time deal that allowed Crypton to throw her away if she didn't rake in enough money for them to be happy.

Secondly, she thought her mother was thinking too shallowly. Luka didn't believe deep-down inside that Crypton would allow her to record the backing track herself, let alone use their company's products in it. _Heck_ , she thought, _they don't even know I can play loads of instruments! Their fault for not giving me a proper interview!_

Finally, she wondered how the people there would treat her if she became more popular than they were. Meiko and Kaito, the two Crypton veterans, would probably be welcoming… she had seen the interviews of those two, back in the days when no-one had a clue who Miku was, and they seemed like nice, caring people, who didn't let the fame affect them that much.

Rin and Len, the fourteen-year-old blonde twins, could be really nice people, but they could also be the meanest little twerps Luka ever had the pleasure of meeting with… to be honest, she couldn't be that sure, as she wasn't the biggest fans of the twins. She preferred Miku over all of Crypton's other vocalists.

If there was one thing Luka knew for definite about, it would be that Miku would treat her kindly, no matter how odd or strange Luka might act in front of her. Miku was, Luka was sure of it, an angel sent down from the heavens above. She had the looks of an angel, she had the voice of an angel, she had the hospitality of an angel, she had the modesty of angel, she had the-

"Luka, darling, we're here!" Luka's mother bought Luka out of her Miku-centered thoughts with an excited scream.

Luka's mother jumped out of the car and ran to get the papers out of the back of the car. Luka grinned at her mother's childishness ( _She's more excited than I am, and I'm the one who's actually got the job!_ ) and followed her mother to the massive doors that led to the lobby of the Crypton Tower.

* * *

She looked at all of the people rushing about the lobby in their fancy suits and skirts, then looked down at her own casual outfit, which was the same one she wore the day before ( _why should I throw these in the wash when they smell perfectly fine?_ was her reasoning). Even her mother, who was wearing her 'most casual' outfit, was wearing a pair of slacks and a blazer, and blended in effortlessly with all the important people around her. Luka grumbled something to herself as she and her mother made her way over to the receptionist's desk.

Luka's mother noticed her daughter's less-than-pleased expression, and said to her, "Luka, dear, put on a happy face, the ugly one you're making doesn't suit you," before pushing Luka's chin up a bit.

They got the the desk and the receptionist's eyes glinted with recognition at Luka, and Luka blushed, remembering how she entered the building before.

Luka's mother smiled and spoke to the lady. "Excuse me, but my daughter here-" Luka's mother gestured to the flustered teen "-won that event that happened yesterday and we need to drop these papers off to whoever needs them."

The receptionist smiled, congratulated Luka on her success, then asked them to wait while she made a quick phone call. Luka's mother thanked her before standing off to the side, practically dragging Luka along with her.

"Luka! You are supposed to thank someone when they compliment you!" whisper-shouted Luka's mother, scolding her for her bad manners without drawing attention to herself. "Honestly, I don't know how I put up with you in public sometimes!" She sighed before giving her daughter a pleading look.

Luka chuckled. "Well, be thankful that I'm not as bad as Luki. He would've-"

"Don't finish that sentence here, Luka. You don't know who could be watching us, trying to put a hole in our good reputation..." Luka's mother faded out, then started looking at the corners of the gigantic lobby for some hidden cameras, or some shady people looking at them. Luka chuckled again at her mother, and was about to comment on her superstitions, when the receptionist lightly coughed to get their attention.

"Megurine-san, the President of Crypton would like you to meet him at his office on the 30th floor."

Luka raised and eyebrow. The President of Crypton wanted to see her?

Luka's mother thanked the receptionist again, and started walking towards the same elevator Luka had been in yesterday. She hoped that the company president didn't have a tight schedule - he might have to wait a couple of hours for the elevator to take her up to his floor.

While waiting for the elevator to descend to the lobby, Luka started to think about what song she could record. If she managed to make things go her way, she would get to write her own, new song to be released as her first single, but, if Crypton didn't like her song, they could force her to record and release a song they had wrote…

Luka shuddered. There was no way in _hell_ that she was singing a song that these people wrote for her. It wouldn't be right for her to take their work, record it, then slap it on an album cover with her face on it without so much as crediting the people who put the hard work and effort into creating the song in the first place. Even then, the song they could write for her might not be that good, and, if what the paper from the day before had said was true, then it might blow her chance of becoming famous.

After she was done with the single, she'd have to do the duet with Miku (Luka wasn't _that_ naive to think that Crypton would let a no-name like her do the song with Miku before she released her own solo single… right?). Luka didn't even have to think about what she'd do for the song - her answer was simple. She'd do whatever Miku wanted to do.

Luka thought about Miku, and remembered the one time when she met Miku after one of her first concerts as a superstar working for Crypton. Miku treated her like she would treat any other fan; a quick "Hi! Nice to meet you!", a selfie with her, and an autograph. Nevertheless, Luka still thought of it as one of the best days of her life. She wondered if Miku would remember her, but then immediately dismissed the thought of it - besides, Miku had no reason to remember her, an ordinary girl who didn't even bother to wear a teal wig to the concert (it wasn't Luka's fault the store had run out when she went to buy one...).

The elevator doors opened, and a load of people filed out. Luka couldn't believe how many people could fit into _that_ small of a space for the long period of time that was the elevator ride without at least one person suffocating due to the oxygen supply running out. As Luka and her mother walked in, Luka informed her mother that this was the same elevator that took almost half an hour to get to the seventeenth floor. Luka's mother just chuckled at her.

"Luka, dearest, you're exaggerating. No elevator takes _that_ long, especially in such a technologically-advanced country like Japan," stated Luka's mother, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

 _You watch… by the time we get there, my new phone will be outdated_ , thought Luka bitterly, as she took out her phone to check the time.

Luka's mother pressed the button right at the top of the list, the one with the number '30' labelled on it, and watched the doors close. Luka's eyes narrowed. They were closing much, _much_ faster than they were yesterday…

"See, darling? You said the doors close really slowly. They closed at a pace that seemed above average just now!" said Luka's mother, sending a judging look her daughter's way. Luka grumbled something unintelligible as a response.

"Dear, you should speak up, especially when speaking to your elders. People will think of you as rude and immature if you do that to them, like- oh, we're here!"

Luka's head sprang up, and she looked at the elevator door in front of her. Indeed, it seemed they were on the top floor of the building, and it only took them-

 _Ehhhh?_

Luka had to bite her lip to stop herself from gasping as she looked at her phone. It took them not even a minute to get from the bottom floor to the top floor!

"Wha…"

"Come on darling! The President of Crypton Future Media is waiting for us- I mean you!" exclaimed Luka's mother, practically running down the long corridor to the huge, wooden door that had a golden plaque with 'Crypton Future Media' engraved into it, along with some really fancy kanji that Luka had never seen in her life underneath it. She made a mental note to take a picture of her way out and ask someone what it meant.

"Luka! Hurry now!", called her mother from all the way across the corridor. Luka smiled. Someone looking on from outside would never guess that this was one of the most important people in one of the biggest companies in the world shouting at her daughter enthusiastically to hurry up.

"Yeah, Mother, I'm coming."

* * *

They went through the massive door and ended up in what was probably the most luxurious room either of them had ever seen. Which was saying a lot, as one of the two awestruck people was the one with the second-most power in an international business, and would have seen a lot of fancy rooms during their work.

"Woah…" breathed Luka, breaking the silence of the room. She couldn't believe her eyes. Everything in the room screamed "EXPENSIVE" into whoever walked in the room's faces.

The room was big, but that itself didn't really make either of the women freeze in shock. Rather, it was the contents of the room that set it apart.

The carpet was red, with little golden threads in it that made it shimmer in the light of the room. To the left of where Luka and her mother were standing was a desk, with a secretary sat behind it on a computer, absorbed in her work. The desk she was sat at was made of wood stained white, with intricate little patterns engraved into it. On the wall behind the desk, there were portraits of all the Presidents of Crypton, ever since its inception a couple hundred years ago, painted in a similar fashion - in gray-scale, when all of them were young. The paintings were extremely detailed, with every last strand of hair having its own separate stroke of paint. This, while stunning, was not the most breathtaking part of the room.

This honor was given to the wall to the right of Luka. In fact, it wasn't even a wall. It was just one big window.

Since the Crypton building was on the edge of the city, one could actually overlook everything from this one room. Every building, every tree, every car, even every person (that is, if you squinted hard enough) could be seen.

The secretary's head shot up from behind her computer when she realized she had guests, and she hastily got up from behind her desk to greet Luka and her mother.

"Sorry for my not noticing of you coming in earlier," apologized the secretary with a bow, "I had some work to send in before a deadline passed…"

"Ah, no, it's perfectly alright," said Luka's mother with a small bow and a smile, before continuing. "We were told that the President wanted to see my daughter…?"

The secretary's eyes flickers to Luka, who smiled and did a small wave, and she nodded. "Yes, I was informed of that a few minutes back. I'm deeply sorry, but the President is in a small meeting right now. He should be finishing up any minute now." She then gestured to the leather couches near the door opposite to the one they entered the room in. "Feel free to sit down on those seats over there. If you would like anything, like tea or a snack, please don't hesitate to ask." With that, the secretary did another small bow then returned to her desk, quickly getting stuck back into her work.

Luka looked towards her mother, who just shrugged and headed for the sofas on the other end of the room. She followed.

Just as she was settling into the comfort that was the supple Italian leather sofas, the door opened and a familiar man walked out.

"Ah, Megurine-san, you're here," said the manager from the day before ( _seriously, was his name Ryu or Ryo!?_ ), "The President of Crypton and I were just talking about you…" He gestured into the room and walked in, signalling to Luka that she should follow. Confused, Luka turned to her mother, who just looked at her before pushing her on.

Luka gave her mother a dirty look.

"Well, you're the one they want to see, aren't you?" was her reasoning. Tentatively, Luka stepped towards the open doors and walked through, curious as to how the grand office of the President of Crypton Future Media could possibly be more decorative than the room they had just been in.

Turns out, she didn't have to wonder how fancier the main office was to the other room, because, to put it simply, it wasn't.

In fact, Luka even thought it was less fancy than her bedroom. Which was saying _something_.

The room's white walls were plain, and the wooden floor had very few items on it: a desk near the back of the room with only a laptop and a photo frame on it; a tall-backed desk chair behind the desk; a bookshelf filled with a load of ancient tomes Luka wouldn't dare to go near; a slim, tall filing cabinet huddled in the corner; and a shoji screen off to the side of the room. As Luka ventured further into the unimpressive room, she realized she couldn't see the President of Crypton anywhere. She also realized she didn't know his name.

 _...Oops._

Suddenly, a figure walked out from behind the shoji screen, audibly hitting a guitar on the edge of the desk, almost making Luka drop the bag of papers she had on her back out of fright. Luka could only assume he was the President of the company, but he certainly didn't look it.

For starters, he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt - very casual for an important figure himself. The t-shirt even had an anime girl's face on it, complete with big, round eyes. It was even less appropriate for the building they were in than Luka's clothes. _But then again_ , thought Luka, _he's the one that makes the rules, so I guess he's allowed to break them._

Secondly, he was young. Luka couldn't imagine him being any older than Luki was, and Luki was 25. Even Luka's father, when he took over the family business, was at _least_ thirty years old.

Finally, his hair was dyed about twenty different colors. A strand of fiery red here, some bright blonde tips there, candy-floss pink highlights and even roots that were colored Miku-teal. He looked like he belonged anywhere _but_ at the top of one of the most successful studios in the world.

"Oh… hey." The man noticed that there were people in the room, and quickly put the guitar down on top of his desk ( _A Gibson Les Paul Standard_ , Luka noticed) and hastily walked over to them and introduced himself. "I'm Yamada Hiro, President of Crypton Future Media, and this is my little cousin, Yamada Ryo ( _It's_ _Ryo! Not Ryu!_ ), who also happens to be the manager of our most successful singer to date, Hatsune Miku." Both men bowed simultaneously towards the two women.

"Hello, Yamada-san and Yamada-san ("Oh, just call us Hiro and Ryo," said the company president with a wave of his hand, "It prevents confusion."), I am Megurine Ayano, and this is my daughter Megurine Luka." Luka's mother introduced herself and her daughter, then bowed. Luka didn't bow immediately, as she was too busy looking at the guitar rested on the desk, but then, when she noticed her mother, she quickly followed her lead.

"Ah, yes, Ryo here was just telling me about you," said Hiro, looking at Luka. "He said your voice is beautiful, and that your manners are impeccable," he complimented, making Luka blush and rub the back of her head.

"Heh.. thanks," she replied nervously. Then, she pulled the backpack containing all the papers off her shoulder and opened it towards the two men. "I have all the papers you needed us to sign right here," said Luka. Ryo took the bag off her and looked through it, shock evident on his features.

"Wow, you've already gotten all these signed? I would've thought you would have questions and doubts about it…" asked Ryo, ruffling through all the papers to see that every single one was signed.

"Yeah," replied Luka, "my parents and I agreed beforehand that, if I was successful at the audition, they'd let me do it without arguing with me over it." Luka hoped her tone was business-y enough, as she really didn't feel like listening to her mother go on about manners on the car ride back home.

"Oh, I see," said Ryo, putting the bag on the desk behind him, to the side of the guitar. "I'm guessing you have questions, Megurine-san, about one little statement on one of those sheets of paper, that is, if you've actually taken the time to read through all of them thoroughly."

Luka hesitated before speaking. "...Are you talking about that sheet that says I'm doing a duet with Hatsune Miku?"

"Yep, that's the one," said Hiro simply, replying for his cousin. "Ryo added that sheet to the pile at the last minute yesterday, or so he tells me, because he thinks your voice will go well with Hatsune-san's," explained Hiro, before pausing and looking at the nervous Luka, "and I think he's right. If your singing voice sounds anything like your regular voice, that is."

Strangers seemed to love complimenting Luka these days. First there was the day before, with that barrage of compliments about her politeness and whatever, and now the president of a massive company she had only met minutes prior was talking about how she was so good at singing she could sing with the biggest idol in Japan. Her poor little brain couldn't take much more.

"Uh… thanks," she said. She opened her mouth to ask something else, but quickly closed it again. It could come off as rude, talking when someone else could say something, couldn't it?

"Do you have a question, Megurine-san?" prompted Hiro, looking at Luka expectantly after noticing her hesitation.

"Uh… on that same sheet of paper, y'know, the one with the Miku thing, it said I'd only get a permanent job if the single sells well. I thought the flyer said it was a permanent job either way…?" asked Luka, wiping her sweaty hands on her jeans.

Ryo's face contorted into something ugly, and Luka could easily tell that he was trying not to facepalm. Hiro looked at his cousin and sighed.

"Ah, no, sorry Megurine-san. My cousin took that sheet from one of our previous competitions, and must have forgotten to get rid of the important details like that before getting it printed. It was also the only one with your name printed on it, wasn't it?"

Luka slowly nodded.

"Yeah… sorry for any distress it's caused you. Next time, we'll have someone else other than my imbecilic cousin do the last-minute adjustments," said Hiro, sending a dirty look Ryo's way, who just smiled nervously.

Luka decided she liked these two cousins. They weren't as snobbish as she expected the President of a big company and the manager of one of the biggest stars on the planet to be.

"No, it's quite alright," replied Luka's mother for her.

"Also," started Ryo, "we need to know when you can work so that it fits in with your current schedule," he said, before pulling out a phone just like Luka's and opening up a note-taking app.

"Well, I have to go to university most days, but there's not a concrete schedule. And I'm generally free after three o'clock every day of the week. And I've got a part time job on Mondays and Wednesdays from half-three 'till half-five," explained Luka, before pausing to see if she forgot anything. "Yeah, that's it."

Ryo nodded, then finished making his notes before slipping the phone back into his pocket. "We'll figure something out. Say, which university do you go to?" he asked.

"Tokyo… why?"

"Just… and what are you studying?"

"Music…"

"Ah. It's just that we could be able to let you skip some classes to work, and then catch up later."

Luka didn't really like the idea of that, and it must have shown on her face, as Ryo said, "But if you'd rather work only when you didn't have classes, that's completely fine by us."

Luka nodded, and relaxed. "Okay then. When do you want me to start?"

"Is tomorrow good for you, at… three?" replied Hiro, looking at Ryo for confirmation. Ryo nodded at his cousin and looked back at Luka.

"I could come in at nine if you wanted me to," said Luka, "I don't have any classes tomorrow."

"That's great!" exclaimed Hiro, his multi colored hair bouncing in excitement along with him, "Then you can get started on the single, and release it for the world to hear!"

Luka smiled. She couldn't wait to work on the single, write it, record it, release it… if the single was successful and people liked it, and, consequently, liked Luka, then her childhood dream would be fulfilled.

"Yeah, that would be awesome…" Luka went off into her own world, daydreaming about how life would be after her song release. She then remembered Miku; her life would be the absolute _best_ if she and Miku hit it off…

"Also, if you don't mind, we'll throw a party later on to celebrate, and you can meet some of the other Vocaloids, interrogate them about life as a pop-star and what-not," said Hiro.

"Yeah, that's fine, I've got nothing planned for today…" Luka agreed to the idea, nodding happily.

"Perfect! I'll start arranging it later. Can you be here at seven?"

Luka looked at her mother, who nodded at her. "Yep, I can!"

"Excellent! I feel like there's something else I'm forgetting to tell you before we send you on your way…" The man drifted off into thought, leaving the room silent, with hints of awkwardness flowing about.

Luka was going to meet the Vocaloids. That very day. She couldn't believe it. Would Miku be there? If she would, that'd be awesome. But wasn't she on tour?

The President of Crypton seemed to read her mind. "Oh yes, sorry, but Miku can't be there, as she's on tour, but most of the others will be there, including the ones that are from other branches. My sincerest apologies if we got your hopes up or anything."

Luka's shoulders slumped when she heard Miku wouldn't be there (because who wouldn't love a chance to meet Miku?), but when she heard that Vocaloids from other branches would be there, her she stood up straight again. A friend of hers had left a few months before to become a Vocaloid, and she wondered if she would see her there.

"Ah, Megurine-san?" Luka snapped out of her thoughts and looked in the direction of the two men.

"Huh?"

"You haven't asked about your salary yet. Not that everything is about the money, but people usually ask about the money before agreeing to a job completely…" said Hiro, scratching his head.

"Oh, sorry Hiro-san…" said Luka sheepishly. Why _didn't_ she think of the money before?

"No no, it's quite alright, Megurine-san, I just thought you'd want to know," explained Hiro, before pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Since you're just starting out, I figured I'd make your annual salary for just signing the contract ten million yen-" Luka's eyes widened and her legs were on the verge of giving in, "-but my little cousin here said that was way, _way_ too little for someone with potential like yours. So, I've decided to triple it to thirty million yen."

Luka couldn't believe her ears. Thirty million yen!? _Thirty. Million. Yen!?_

Hiro laughed nervously. "Yeah, sorry, I know it's a pretty small amount, but that's only the baseline salary. From every single or album sale, you get twenty percent, which is _quite_ high if I say so myself, and if you decide you want to do things like modelling, like Miku sometimes does for magazines, or even go into acting, that will get you more money," rattled off the man, seemingly embarrassed about giving Luka such a 'small' salary.

Luka's legs literally couldn't support her anymore, and she had to grab onto her mother's arm to keep herself upright. "Thirty… million… yen…" breathed Luka, still in disbelief. And they believed that was a _low_ salary!?

Luka's mother looked at her daughter like she had gone funny. "Luka, dear, that isn't that much! That's only about… £180,000? That won't even get you a good-sized house, you know!"

Luka just stared at her mother. Then, she remembered her mother was loaded. "Mother, if you want to show off your wealth, please do it anywhere but here," stated Luka.

"But darling, you are part of the Megurine family! This amount of money is small!"

"Yeah, but you make us _work_ for the money. Me and Luki don't do work, you should know that by now, and, therefore, we are poor people," retorted Luka, before remembering that the man who had just hired her was right behind her.

"Uh… I actually _do_ do work, if it's something fun, which I'm sure working for you will be, Hiro-san…" said Luka quickly, before the men got the impression that she was lazy.

Both men laughed. "No, it's alright," said Hiro, "We didn't like doing work too when we were younger. Heck, sometimes I don't like doing it today!"

Luka and her mother smiled at the men. Ryo then stopped laughing when whatever they were laughing at got boring (Luka only smiled because her mother did... she couldn't really see what was so funny) and realized something.

"Wait, you're rich _and_ your last name is Megurine?" he questioned.

"Yes, Yamada-san, that is correct." Luka could hear the small traces of pride in her mother's voice. _Oh no…_

"...You're not the Megurines from Megurine Corporation, are you?"

"Yes, we are," declared Luka's mother proudly, taking on a confident posture.

"I'm a massive fan of your products!" burst out the excited manager. The musical instruments especially! Your guitars are absolutely amazing! I was actually trying to persuade my cousin here get one of your Night guitars while his old Gibson is sent off to the luthier for repair..." One could easily tell how much the slim manager loved the Megurine products, with all his prancing about the office.

"Well, thank you for your kind words," thanked Luka's mother, revelling in all of the compliments her company's products were receiving. "Actually, I have something to ask you about that, you know…"

Luka sighed, and checked the time on her phone. 10:12. _This is going to be a long day…_

* * *

 **AN:** I don't feel like this is my best piece of writing... I was too caught up in all the directions the plot could take later on and ended up with this measly piece of writing :( . Also, can someone tell me if I'm doing the descriptive scenes right? That was the part I was most stuck on, and it's probably the low point of this chapter...

I've also put an update-type thing on my profile that I update every time I add something to this fic, so if you're wondering when something is going to be uploaded, or if you wanna know what else I have in the works, feel free to check that out :) . And yes, I know there's been no Miku, but that will be resolved... at the end of chapter 4. Briefly. I'm not saying anymore on the matter.

Thanks for all the reviews, follows and favourites so far... every single one makes me feel all mushy inside :D so keep reviewing and favouriting and following!

See you in a few days!

 **Edit 28-02: Word changes. Also, someone remind me to never put "In a few days" at the end of a chapter again. Ever. 'Cos it won't happen.**


	4. The Morning After the Night Before

Luka woke up.

Turning onto her back, she opened her eyes and stared at the plain, white ceiling above her, quite unlike the teal one (after a certain someone) in her bedroom.

 _...Where the world am I?_

Still staring at the ceiling, she tried to recall her memories of the previous night, but they were fuzzy. She remembered getting signed by Crypton in the morning, going home, eating a tuna sandwich for her lunch, worrying about what to wear to the party, having her mother drive her to said party, and walking in through the doors to the actual party.

After that, she remembered meeting a couple of the Vocaloids, and getting on good terms with most of them (or, it seemed that way to her...). Then, she remembered, Meiko offered her some sake. Not wanting to seem rude to her new acquaintance, Luka took it, even though she wasn't legally allowed to.

 _...Ah. That makes sense._

Luka had never drunk alcohol before, but she assumed that she would be better at holding it than _that._ She could only hope that she didn't make a fool out of herself while she was drunk…

 _Heh_ , she thought, amused. _Th_ _at plan failed. I'm in a random bed, an equally random stranger probably sleeping next to me- oh ffff...lip._

Luka's eyes widened as she registered where she was. Why was she in a bed…? And why was she only in her underwear…?

Oh _hell_ no.

Although she was becoming panicked, Luka managed to control herself enough to turn her head slowly to the side, really not wanting to wake the other people in the bed (if there were any… Luka dearly hoped there wasn't). When she saw who it was, her jaw dropped.

A man curled up, sleeping silently, only his floppy blue hair poking out from under the covers.

Kaito.

Luka had to restrain herself from jumping out of the bed and screaming. Of all people, Kaito!? What the heck?!

"What the…" whispered Luka to herself, so faintly you'd have to be right next to her to hear it.

"Luka-san, don't-"

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Luka's shrill scream cut the unknown speaker off before they could even make their point. She was ready to pull the pillow out from under Kaito's head and bash the speaker's head with it until they bled when the stranger forced a hand over her mouth.

"Shh!" the stranger whispered. Luka turned her head to see them, and her eyes widened even more.

Meiko. Also only in her underwear.

It was lucky that Luka was already laying down, because if she had been stood up her legs would have surely given out. She was in a random bed, with not one, but _two_ of Japan's most well-known idols, at least two of them clad only in their underwear. Luka prayed to every god and deity out there that what she thought happened _didn't._

Meiko looked at Kaito's sleeping form ( _Wait, aren't they engaged…? Ohmygodthey'regonnakillme_ ), then put a finger over her own mouth, silently telling Luka to be quiet before removing her hand from over the bewildered pinkette's mouth. Gently, she pulled the covers off of herself and Luka, grabbed the younger girl's hand and slowly got out of the bed, still trying not to disturb the unconscious man next to them.

Meiko nodded towards a door and walked through it, while Luka, still as confused and frightened as ever, followed her.

When they got into the bathroom, Meiko shut the door with a forceful push and turned back to look at Luka, who was futilely trying to cover her virtually bare body. Meiko shot her a look that said 'don't-even-bother' before sighing.

"...Do you remember what happened last night?"

Luka shook her head the tiniest amount, her face pale with disbelief.

Meiko sighed again, and raised a hand to her forehead. "First things first, no, we did not - I repeat, _not -_ do what you think we did."

Luka visibly relaxed as Meiko spoke.

"What _did_ happen, though, is that you go _so_ wasted after, like, two tiny cups of sake that me and Kaito tried to take you home, y'know, being the responsible people we are-"

"You gave alcohol to someone underage," said Luka with a small voice, before realising how what she said could be taken as rude and shutting up and looking down.

"Oh, shut up- wait, you're underage?!" gasped Meiko, eyes widening. "Argh, nevermind." Meiko waved herself off before continuing her story.

"Where was I? Ah, yes, taking drunk Luka home." She cleared her throat before starting again.

"We tried to get your address, but, like I said, you were so drunk you weren't speaking properly. 'Cos we didn't want anything bad to happen to you, we took you to the nearest hotel, booked a room for one, and paid for it for you. We were going to leave when you literally _begged_ us to stay, then sleep in the bed with you, as you wouldn't let go of our arms."

By the time Meiko had finished summarising the last evening's events, Luka was blushing head to toe. She couldn't believe she had been such a fool when she drunk… she made a mental note to _never_ drink in front of other people again.

Meiko noticed the younger girl's discomfort, and sighed. "Look here."

Luka rose her head.

"...Sorry. I didn't know you were underage, 'cos of your body-" Luka sent her a terrified look and crossed her arms over her chest, to which Meiko just chuckled nervously, "-and because of your maturity. I thought that you were at _least_ 23… though, now, I guess I owe Kaito 2,000 yen…"

At that moment, a groaning figure walked out from the bedroom, and into the bathroom, wearing only his boxers, clutching his head. "Mei-chan, I had this weird dream that Luka from last night forced us to sleep with her-"

The man raised his head, and saw the two women in only their bras and panties looking up at him, one a nervous wreck and the other sending him annoyed looks while gesturing at the girl next to her.

Kaito, realising what the girl was worrying over as he looked at his own clothes (or, rather, lack of clothes), walked back into the bedroom with his head bowed, muttering apologies to both women.

Meiko sighed and turned to face the younger woman.

"Luka-san."

Luka timidly lifted her head up and looked into the older woman, tearing up. Luka wasn't good at dealing with her emotions in general, but one of them was much worse than the others: anxiety. No matter how little, Luka could not deal with anxiety or nervousness. She had been like this ever since she was little. Not even her parents knew what had caused it; all they knew is that it showed up when Luka had to deal with awkward or new situations. This had earned her the nickname 'Toeto' amongst her peers, which Luka actively despised. Partly because it was mean, and also because it was what _she_ used to say to break her spirit…

"I'm so sorry about that idiot Bakaito… he doesn't seem to know how to phrase things in a way that people will find…" Meiko waved her hands in front of her face as she thought, "...normal." Meiko sighed and put a hand on her forehead.

"..."

Luka couldn't speak. She was still wallowing in her own tremendous amount of stupidity at drinking alcohol when she was underage. In hindsight, keeping herself safe and aware of her surroundings around a bunch of strangers was _definitely_ more important that being polite to people. Though, she could've just politely refused the drink and live on with it… Darn stupid social expectations!

 _Heh, yeah right_ , thought Luka, allowing herself a small smile, _like the Toeto in me would ever let that happen…_

Meiko saw the younger girl smiling at something while she was looking down at the carpet. She just couldn't resist taking a crack at the pinkette about what she proudly declared last night.

"Woah, what have we here? Is our little Luka-chan thinking about her teal-haired idol…?" teased Meiko. As the younger girl's face paled, Meiko instantly wanted to take back her words.

 _What the heck have I done? Look at her face… Well, the poor girl deserves to know what went on last night... But will she even be able to take it?_

Meiko stopped her inner rambling before it got out of control. Then, she took a deep breath.

"You wanna know what went on last night?"

Luka looked up at the slightly taller woman and nodded her head slightly, her skin back to its original colour.

"Let's start from the beginning then, shall we?" Meiko cleared her throat. "Alright, so you arrived outside the building with your mother..."

* * *

Luka was nervous.

Her hands were shaking, her head felt fuzzy, and her heart was going at a hundred miles a minute.

And she hadn't drunk anything or taken any dodgy substances. Yet.

"Have a nice party, dear!" exclaimed Luka's mother, waving her daughter out of the car. Luka gulped, then hesitantly opened her door and got out of the car, before turning to her mother and waving, a forced smile plastered onto her face. Luka's mother squealed in delight at her daughter.

"Darling, darling! Oh, your father and I, we're so proud! Our little Luka, heading off into a building filled with famous stars that are there to see _her_!" shouted her mother happily. Luka giggled nervously and looked around, praying that none of the aforementioned "stars" were within hearing range of their conversation.

"Oh, and Luka, dear! If you feel an attack coming on, you know, with all the people around you, please give me, your father or your brother a call!" reminded the older lady, before driving off, leaving Luka alone in front of the lavish building that was Crypton Tower.

She sighed. Her mother was trying to help her, but it only made Luka more nervous. If she _did_ have an attack, then everyone there would laugh at her, and it would be uncannily similar to what happened when she was younger…

"Hey! You there!"

A deep voice tore Luka from her thoughts.

A blue-haired man approached her, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with some graphics from a popular fighting game.

"You're Megurine Luka, aren't you?"

Luka nodded nervously. The man looked familiar from somewhere, but she couldn't put her finger on it…

"Yes, I knew it! I'm Kaito, and since I don't want you to refer to me by my last name, I'm not telling you it!"

Kaito stuck his hand out towards the shaking pinkette, who tentatively put her hand in the excited older man's.

She smiled in recognition. Kaito was one of Crypton's first artists. Admittedly, he wasn't very popular but then Miku joined Crypton, and his popularity skyrocketed. Luka had to admire the guy - sticking with his dream of becoming a star even when it seemed like nothing was going his way. Though, Luka didn't like how he was portrayed with Miku in some of their songs...

"Awesome! Let's go into the party, then!" said Kaito, a massive grin on his face.

He started walking off towards the doors of Crypton, and let go of Luka's hand, leaving her alone and unsure of what to do. She watched as Kaito strolled through the doors, posture very confident, before turning around and hastily making his way back to Luka.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his head. "Oops… sorry. Guess it's my fault for being overconfident, you know?" Kaito smiled, then took Luka's hand in his own again.

Luka's eyes widened as she looked at her right hand. Then, finally, her mind registered what was going on.

Kaito was a pop star. Not as popular as Miku, of course, but still, he was a _very_ famous pop star.

A world-famous _pop star_ was holding her hand.

And he was about to walk into a packed building while holding her hand.

And didn't he have a girlfriend…?

 _Ohmygod this won't end well at all-_

"Let's go!"

Kaito strode through the doors, scaring Luka with how fast he was walking, how eager he seemed to be about the party.

 _It's only a small party, right?_ thought Luka, speeding up her pace to keep herself from falling over. _I only joined Crypton this morning… they wouldn't throw a massive party for me, would they?_

Kaito turned towards the party and held his hands out in front of him. "Welcome to Crypton, Luka!"

Hearing her name, Luka bought her head up and dragged herself out of her thoughts. She looked blankly at the party, then at Kaito, who was excitedly nodding his head, then at the party again.

 _...Woah._

Crypton really had gone all out. The previously neat and sophisticated lobby had been transformed into a party haven. Tables covered with every type of snack imaginable were set up where armchairs had been that morning, the chandeliers overhead glowed a multitude of colours, illuminating every corner of massive room, and bass-heavy music blasted out of stacked speakers placed throughout the room.

Though, these were not the reasons why Luka was so shocked. The main reason for her surprise was because of all the people, some of whom she recognised, looking at her expectantly, smiling at her small figure.

When she realised everyone was expecting her to say something, Luka forced her mouth to move and say the first thing she could think of.

"...Hi-" was all she got to say before loud cheers drowned her squeaking voice out. After that, everyone seemed to form an orderly queue to greet her, almost as if they had planned it all out. She turned her head to her right, wanting to ask Kaito what was going on. She sent him a puzzled look and he laughed.

"Luka! They all want to meet you! Go on, give 'em what they want!" he said, then pushed her into the first people in line, a pair of familiar blonde twins.

"Hi!" said the two twins simultaneously. They both waved at the flustered Luka, before introducing themselves.

"I'm Kagamine Rin!" exclaimed the girl on the right enthusiastically. "And I'm Kagamine Len..." uttered the boy on the left quietly, blushing and looking down at his feet.

Luka sweatdropped as Len greeted her. _Why is Len so worried?! ...Am I that scary?_

A deep laugh erupted from Luka's side, and Luka jumped. She had forgotten Kaito was there…

"Ah, so I see little Lenny here's got a crush on Luka~" singsonged the man. Luka listened to his words, watched Len's face as it burned even brighter than she ever thought was possible and couldn't help from giggling herself. Len mumbled something to his sister, which made her release her pent-up laughter.

"My days, Len!" laughed Rin, almost doubled over in laughter, "that's really all you have to say about Luka-san? She seems like she has a lovely personality, and she's got _that_ hair, and all you focus on is her-"

Len threw his hand over his sister's mouth. "Don't tell her that!" screeched the boy defensively. This only prompted even heavier laughter from both Kaito and Rin, who bit down on her brother's palm.

Luka's giggles died down, and her face went a bit red. She had only been here for about half a day, and people ( _famous_ people, she forgot to mention) were already noticing her body! She stood off to the side and forced out a sheepish laugh when she noticed that loads of people that were not involved in their conversation were sending them funny looks and whispering to others around them.

Len sighed at his sister, sent a little curse word Kaito's way (which made Kaito almost wet himself out of amusement) and stormed off, dragging his laughing sister along with him. They went through a door into another room, and, even above all the noise, Luka could still hear Rin's loud laughter.

Kaito let out the last of his laughs, then stood of straight rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry, Luka-san… But, you know, every time a pretty new face arrives, like yours, Len acts like…" Kaito clicked his fingers as he searched for the right word. "...that."

Luka blushed when Kaito said she was pretty. Looked at his masculine face and casual clothes, and sighed. _...I really hope he doesn't like me like_ that, thought Luka, _it'd be awkward to tell him that I don't like-_

"KAI-KUN! How ya bin!" said a slurred voice, interrupting Luka from her thoughts. She looked off to her left, where the voice was coming from, and saw a drunk brunette stagger towards her. The woman stumbled, and grabbed onto the nearest thing - which happened to be Luka - to stop herself from falling.

"Oi oi," slurred the woman, giving Luka a disgusted face as she gave her a once over. "Who the 'ell are you?" The woman took her hands off of Luka's arm and wobbled towards the smiling Kaito.

"Kai-kun! Who's 'is funny woman?! Why are you flirting with her?! Why is she here?!" she slurred, wrapping her arms around Kaito before slowly sliding down to the ground and whimpering.

Kaito looked lovingly at the woman at his feet, then back up at the confused (and quite scared) Luka. "Yeah… sorry 'bout her. Meiko loves a good drink… and when she drinks, she drinks a lot. And by that, I mean _a lot._ "

The woman, Meiko ( _I knew she looked familiar!_ exclaimed Luka in her head), still sat there, shedding obviously fake tears while whimpering. On one hand, Luka wanted to give her a hand up, but the other part of her was quite scared of what would happen if Meiko's drunk state took her well-intended gesture the wrong way.

"Uh…" Luka wanted to try and break the awkward silence between the three adults, yet she couldn't think of anything appropriate to say. _Dammit,_ she thought, tapping her thigh lightly, _There's absolutely nothing anyone could do to fix this situation-_

Just at that moment, someone ran into Luka and knocked her over onto the cold, hard wooden floor.

"LUKA-CHAAAAAN! OH MY GOD! IT'S BEEN AGES!" screamed the figure excitedly. Luka closed her eyes out of surprise when she felt someone run into her, and slowly opened them to look at the enthusiastic person on top of her. All she saw was a mess of blonde hair on her torso.

Just when Luka was about to scream for someone to help, the figure got up and pulled Luka to her feet.

"Heh… soz. Didn't mean to ram you over there… heh."

Still distraught, Luka pulled her head up to see a face that she would have never guessed she'd see at a party for famous _singers_ of all people.

"...Lily?"

The blonde tousled her long hair and sent a thumbs up and a grin the shocked pinkette's way. "Nice to know you haven't forgotten about me after all these years!"

Luka slowly walked towards Lily, and enveloped her in a soul-crushingly tight hug. The people who hadn't already stopped to look at the collision from moments before now watched the hugging girls with interest, some of them with their phones already out to snap photos and gossip.

The two old friends were silent for a couple of seconds, before Lily broke it, along with the happy atmosphere that had settled across the hall.

"...Who woulda thought our little Toeto would end up as a singer _and_ have hot body to match?"

Luka could practically hear the smile in Lily's voice as she whispered the words seductively into her ear. The tight grip around Lily slowly loosened, revealing Luka's horrified expression.

"...What did I do?" asked the playful blonde, looking around her innocently, mouthing "I didn't do anything" to everyone while pointing at Luka.

Most of the people who had gathered to watch the drama unfold had left the group and went back to the party when they noticed it was only two friends hugging, and that nothing juicy was going on. That left only Kaito, the drunken Meiko wrapped around his leg, and Rin and Len, who had rushed with their cellphones out when they heard Lily's shrieks, watching Lily and Luka.

Rin coughed, and the two old friends looked at her. Lily sent the girl a playful wave and a smile, while the red-faced Luka just stood there, obviously trying to keep her gaze falling to the floor out of embarrassment.

"Um…" started the older twin, eyebrows furrowed. "...Nee-chan, how do you know Luka-san?"

Rin asked the question everyone else was dying to know the answer to. Luka looked between Lily and the twins rapidly. _They're siblings?_ she thought. _But... they don't even look similar..._

Lily took in a deep breathe, before exhaling loudly. "Yeah… it's quite a long story. Anyways, I-"

"We have time." Rin curtly replied. Len shrunk into himself a little. When Rin wanted an answer, she got an answer. The boy shivered as he recalled the only time when someone refused to answer his older sister. _...Poor Miku-chan..._

Lily smiled. "Well, you might have time, but I don't, so, I promise, I'll spill all the beans later-"

"No. Now." Lily sighed, while Luka was stood to the side, wondering whether she should just butt in and tell a really condensed version of the story. However, Lily managed to beat her to it.

"Basically, yeah, me and Luka were besties in kindergarten, bleh bleh bleh, then I moved off to the other end of the country when you lot were babies, then we became famous, and now we are here. See ya!"

After giving a very short explanation to everyone watching, Lily literally ran off towards the doors of the room, and left everyone there slightly bewildered.

Rin nodded, before turning to Luka and pulling out her phone.

"I bet nee-chan was going to give you her phone number before she ran- Oh, look at that, she just texted me about that… yeah. So I'll give you her number, yeah?" Rin talked to Luka while fiddling with her phone.

Luka didn't really get what Rin was saying, but, nevertheless, the pulled her phone out of her pocket and dropped it into the waiting hand before her.

Within seconds Rin had added Lily to Luka's contacts. Just as she was about to hand back the phone, she paused, and pulled the phone back towards herself and tapped the screen a bit more, a sly smirk breaking out on her face.

"Luka-san," started Rin, looking up into Luka questioning eyes. Luka didn't need to be a genius to see that Rin was about to tease Luka about something. "Why do you only have four contacts on here?"

Luka's eyebrows furrowed, and she looked at the giggling blonde like she was mad. _What's wrong with having only four contacts? I don't usually give out my phone number to people…_

She felt like addressing the issue. "...Because I don't really need to call anyone else…?" Luka answered Rin's question, but her voice went higher at the end of her sentence, asking for a further explanation.

"...Do you not have any friends?"

Len hit his sister on the arm. "Ow!" she squealed. "What did I do?"

Len sighed. "What you just said was unbelievably rude." He put his head in his hands briefly, before pulling it out to apologise to Luka.

"Don't mind her," he said, gesturing to his baffled sister, "she doesn't get the concept of manners and being polite."

"Um, no, it's fine," said Luka, getting rid of Len's concerns. She had understood what Rin had meant after the remark about her having no friends. "I don't use the default texting app that came with the phone that much 'cos it costs loads. I use an online texting app instead."

Rin nodded out of understanding. "Still, Luka-san, your contact book is sad." She seemed to contemplate something for a few moments before screaming in Meiko and Kaito's direction.

"HEY, MEIKO, KAITO! CAN I GIVE LUKA-SAN YOUR NUMBERS OR WHAT?" yelled the small girl over to the two adults, who had made their way over to the bar, which was not a very clever idea for the already drunk Meiko.

"YEAH, GO AHEAD!" yelled Kaito back over all the music, sending a thumbs up their way just in case they didn't catch what he said.

Rin shouted a quick "thanks" back before adding the two contacts to Luka's phone. Then, she snuck up to them and snapped a photo of each of the adults. Then, she added what Luka presumed was her own number, before taking a quick selfie with a peace symbol in it. Finally, she added a last number, before kicking Len in the shin and taking a picture of his pain-riddled face. Content with her work, she locked the device and handed it back to Luka.

"There you go! Now you've got more people in your contact book besides your family and the pizza delivery place." Rin paused for a moment before speaking again. "Oh! Do you want Miku's phone number?"

Luka had unlocked the device to see that the number of contacts had gone from four to nine, complete with pictures, silly descriptions in the company field, and email addresses. When the amused Luka heard "Miku" and "phone number" coming from somewhere, she literally threw the phone back at Rin.

"Hey!" yelled the small blonde, rubbing her head. "What gives!?"

Luka blushed, and bowed slightly to Rin. "S-Sorry, Kagamine-san. It won't happen again. Promise." She sent Rin a thumbs up to try and lighten the mood, but found it only made the following silence even more awkward.

Rin sighed after a few seconds. "Great. Now I've forgotten what I was gonna do…" She glanced at the phone in her hands, before throwing it back at the pinkette. "Nevermind. It probably wasn't important anyways."

Rin smiled, and then turned to Len, who had been stood watching the encounter from the back. "Let's go, Lenny! I wanna see if they'll let us play on the drum kit!" Rin marched through the sea of people, going out of eyeshot of both Len and Luka.

Len must have noticed the heartbroken look on Luka's face, as he gave her a sad smile. "Sorry, Luka-san, if Rin got your hopes up back there. _I_ would give you Miku-chan's number, but I don't know if she'd like that or not…"

Luka's face fell even more. _...Len thinks Miku won't like me?_

"Oh, but don't think that it's because Miku will be against you! I assure you, she'll love you! But, you know, I wanna respect her privacy, and stuff…" It was as if Len had read Luka's mind.

Luka's mood brightened up a bit. She couldn't help but like the younger twin, his gentle and thoughtful nature a welcome contrast to his sister's loud and brash ways.

"Thank you, Kagamine-san." Luka couldn't think of anything to say, so just bowed slightly to him before the silence got too long, making Len blush.

"N-No, it's okay… a-and, please, j-just call us Rin and L-Len from now on… please." The boy's eyes darted everywhere, looking at everything in the room in a matter of seconds except for Luka.

"OI! LEN! WHERE ARE YOU!" came a shout over all the voices and music. Luka giggled at Len's petrified face, which had gone from tomato red to as pale as a vampire's with Rin's one statement. "Len-san, you'd better go find Rin before she comes back here to find you…"

The blonde boy's head moved very slightly up and down, before he moved imperceptibly fast to the source of the loud blonde's shout.

Luka laughed to herself as she tried to spot the two blonde twins in the mass of people. All the people here were so kind; to be honest, she'd expected to meet _at least_ one person who thought that they were "better" and "of a higher status" than her, but, fortunately, that hasn't happened. Yet. And Luka hoped that it didn't happen.

Luka realised she had been stood by herself, laughing at something no-one could see, for a good few seconds, and quickly shut herself up. She continued standing about for a few seconds, before deciding to make her way over to the bar. Hopefully, Kaito would be there, and Luka would have someone to talk to.

When she got there, both Meiko and Kaito were there, but Meiko wasn't wrapped around Kaito's leg like she was earlier on. They were chatting, now, both sat at the bar with a bottle of expensive sake between them. Kaito said something, and Meiko raised an eyebrow. She then said something back, and then laughed along with Kaito.

Luka decided to make her presence known, and sat in the empty stool next to Meiko, hoping he'd notice her and save her from having to start the conversation.

Thankfully, he did notice her. "Hey Luka-san!" greeted the blue-haired man cheerfully. Luka smiled back, and Meiko turned around to look at her.

To be honest, Luka was expecting the older woman to give her a nasty look, but, surprisingly, she sent her a friendly smile too. "Hey, Luka-san."

Luka couldn't help but be curious. About an hour ago, Meiko had been in a real state. She couldn't speak properly, she couldn't walk properly, _and_ she wrapped her arms around Kaito's legs like her life depended on it. Now, she seemed _sober_. Like, she looked and spoke like she hadn't drunk anything at all for the past three years. Luka was definitely confused.

"Uh, hey, Meiko-san." Luka awkwardly greeted the brunette.

"Ah, no, just call me Meiko. Formalities aren't really my thing." Meiko smiled again and offered Luka some sake. "Here, do you want anything to drink?"

Luka made a face. Alcohol? It would be a really bad decision, considering that she'd have to survive the party and then call her mom to pick her up when it was over. And Luka didn't really think that her mom would be happy if she had to assist her grown-up daughter into the car, then into the house, and then into her own bed.

Meiko mistook the look on Luka's face for disgust. "Oh, don't worry, I only just got this cup. I haven't drunk from it yet, so you don't have any chance of catching any of the disgusting germs that live inside my body."

Luka smiled at Meiko's joke, before her face fell when she took another look at the drink in front of her. If she took it, she'd be pissed, and she doesn't know Meiko very well. She could've spiked the drink… Luka shook her head. No. Kaito's too nice to let that happen. She thought. Hopefully.

But then, if she didn't drink it, then Meiko and Kaito could view it as rude and then never want to talk to her again and then they could ask Crypton to get rid of her because they're much more famous than she is and the label would rather keep a hold of them and get rid of her and make a profit and-

"Well, Luka? The sake'll get warm, and it won't taste as nice. It's expensive, y'know?" Meiko stopped Luka's internal rambling.

Luka blushed, and picked up the little cup. There's no harm in just having one little cup of sake, is there? She's a fully grown, mature adult - she can _obviously_ keep a good grip of herself and make sure she doesn't do anything _too_ wild.

As Luka threw the drink back, Meiko and Kaito smiled to each other. Meiko mouthed "2,000 yen" before they turned back to Luka, who was already feeling a bit woozy.

Meiko smirked. _This could be interesting…_

* * *

"Buh den I don't fink Miku-chan will, like, like me when ah meet her, ya know?" complained a drunk Luka as she was led out of the building by Meiko and Kaito. "Like - hiccup - she'll be mean to me, won't she, 'cos she's rich, famous, and all that, yeah, and I'm not…"

Meiko and Kaito sighed simultaneously from each side of Luka. The poor girl was _such_ a lightweight, to the extent that just two cups of sake made her go a bit crazy. Meiko had to drink at _least_ a good two or three bottles just to feel the buzz of the alcohol… She couldn't even imagine drinking less than five on any given night.

"Luka-san, where do you-" started Kaito, before he was interrupted by drunk Luka's slurring.

"Haaaiiii Kaito-san! I'm not crazy, you are!" yelled Luka loud enough to draw attention to herself if there were more people about. It wouldn't go down too well if people saw Crypton's newest star drunk before she'd even released her first single.

Kaito had to bite his lip to resist the urge to just drop the drunken girl on the spot and let Meiko take care of her. He knew it wouldn't end well when he first saw that glint of mischief in Meiko's eyes as Luka approached the bar. He knew that the night could only end with Luka being drunk and Meiko and himself having to drag her back home. Exhaling, Kaito tried speaking to Luka again.

"Luka-san, where is your house? We need to get you home before something bad happens to you," said Kaito like he was talking to a five-year-old. Which, to be honest, was not very far off of how old Luka was behaving.

"I dunno… and Mother said to never give our address out to weird strangers!" exclaimed Luka, just before her eyes widened and she tried to scramble away from the two pop stars. However, Kaito and Meiko held on to her firmly.

Meiko looked at the struggling girl as she stopped her from running away and raised her eyebrows. _...She's actually calling me a weirdo? Sure, I get why someone would call Bakaito a weirdo, but_ me _? No way._

Meiko continued to judge Luka as Kaito struggled to stop Luka from acting more crazy than she already was. As he tugged her back from her clothes (he _desperately_ wished that there were no people with cameras around) and listened to her panicked wails, something fell from Luka's pocket and fell on to the cold, hard pavement. A cellphone. But not just any cellphone. Luka's cellphone.

 _Bingo!_

Kaito knew he couldn't let go of Luka, as she'd try and bolt, but would, ultimately, get only three feet ahead of him and Meiko before falling to the ground and somehow hitting her head on some hard rock and knocking herself out, and that would be even more troublesome for him (and his current situation was hard to beat in that field), but he needed to let go of her to bend down and get the phone…

 _Argh!_ he screamed internally. _Why did Meiko have to push Luka into drinking that sake!_

Luka would not stop struggling, and she was pulling Kaito further and further away from where her phone had dropped (Meiko had given up ages ago and was now just sending dirty looks Luka's way and silently bitching about her from the side). Kaito had a decision to make: either release Luka and grab her phone, and risk her falling and getting a concussion, or keep moving forward, and have to deal with both the mess that was a pissed Megurine Luka for who knows how long _and_ have to be the one to tell her that her new and expensive phone "went missing" when she woke up in the morning…

Kaito muttered some swear words before letting go of Luka and running back to where her phone had fallen. _At least if she falls she'll get knocked out and I won't have to fight to get her to somewhere safe…_

He picked up the phone and rushed back to Luka, where, lo and behold, she was in a crying heap on the floor. Kaito stomped his foot against the pavement. _Dammit! She should be in an unconscious heap right now!_

Suppressing his annoyance at the world, he unlocked Luka's phone and went to her contacts. He didn't have much trouble finding Luka's mother in her contacts, and was about to press the call button when Luka pounced on his arm and knocked the phone out of his hand and straight into hers.

"What d'you think you're doing?" slurred Luka, staring directly into his eyes. Kaito looked away after less than four seconds; her blue eyes looked clear as day, even when the rest of her way undoubtedly drunk, and they looked like they could search through his soul and find all of his deepest, darkest secrets. Needless to say, it was quite unnerving.

Kaito could not keep his eyes on hers, and soon lost the silent battle that had only just started between them. No more than a second after his eyes averted away from hers, she cheered overly loudly.

"YES! I WIN! I get to have that phone in your hand now!" she exclaimed, before snatching the phone out of Kaito's hand and kissing it.

Kaito tried to grab the phone off her, but gave up when he saw all the spit that Luka had left on it. _Thank the heavens that these phones are waterproof…_

Meiko was watching the scene with amusement and interest, when a pang of guilt tugged at her heart. Or, at least, it felt like guilt. She hoped that all her years of drinking hadn't finally caught up to her.

She walked over to the drunk pinkette and threw one of Luka's arms over her shoulders. She looked at Kaito. "Where's the nearest hotel?"

He thought for a few seconds before shrugging and taking out his phone. Within seconds, he knew where to go. "There's this inn that's only a two minute walk away. It's not _that_ expensive, either." Silently, he slipped his phone back into his pocket and started walking in the direction of the inn, leaving Meiko to deal with Luka. Meiko was a much stronger, more independent person than he was; she'd be able to deal with Luka easily.

As Kaito trotted on, Meiko had no idea as to what she could do. Suddenly, Luka's body became much more heavier, and she seemed to go limp.

Meiko looked at her unmoving face and panicked.

"KAITO! SHE ISN'T MOVING!" she screamed. The only thing that was going through her mind was how bad she felt for giving Luka the alcohol. To be honest, she'd forgotten that alcohol poisoning existed. She drunk much, _much_ more than what was considered healthy and she had never experienced any of the symptoms… or, at least, she thought she hadn't.

Meiko couldn't even remember how to check if someone's alive or not… Did you have to feel their wrist, or was it their waist…? She sighed in frustration. The alcohol she'd drunk a few hours ago had almost completely worn off (she couldn't decide whether that was a good or bad thing), but she still couldn't use all of her brain...

Kaito laughed as he continued strolling on. _That Meiko… I'm not that stupid as to fall for her plan to get me to help her…_

He carried on walking for a good minute, before turning around to check that Meiko was still behind him.

"Mei-chan, make sure you don't drop her- Meiko?" Kaito's eyebrows furrowed as he looked behind him. Meiko should have been there…

 _Oh, crap_ , he thought, as he sprinted back the way he came. _Meiko was actually being serious for once in her life?!_

After a few seconds, he was back where he last saw Meiko and Luka. His heart pounded as he frantically looked around for the two girls. It was bad enough that drunk Luka was lost, and possibly dead, but Meiko!? She'd end up dying right beside Luka!

"Kaito!" came Meiko's unnaturally high-pitched scream. He turned around and looked in the direction of the noise, but he couldn't see them…

"Idiot, come here and help!" she shouted again. He moved forward a bit, and saw the two girls, one seemingly asleep on the cold floor, the other knelt down next to her and hyperventilating.

Kaito looked at Luka, then looked at Meiko. "...What are you worried about?"

Meiko got up and slapped him. "Are you blind!" she yelled into his face, making him lean away from her. "Look at her! She looks dead!"

Kaito couldn't help but let out a small giggle. Luka's chest was rising and falling, albeit in an irregular pattern. It wasn't what one would call regular breathing, but at least she was breathing at all.

"Mei-chan, _you_ should look at her. She's breathing fine!"

Meiko turned around and looked at the unconscious pinkette, and, to her shock, she saw her chest rise and fall.

"...I swear on her life that she wasn't doing that before." Meiko said this with the most serious expression Kaito had ever seen on her face.

Kaito laughed. "Ah well. Come on, let's get her to that inn. It's just around the corner." With that, he picked Luka up bridal style and started walking.

"Oi!" said Meiko, an annoyed expression on her face.

Kaito looked back to look at her. "Yeah?"

"Why are you carrying her like that!? You're getting married to _me_ , not her!" she said, crossing her arms as she caught up to him.

Kaito smiled at his fiancé's jealousy. "Aww," he cooed. "Who thought that the tough, no-nonsense Meiko would get jealous over a girl that I've only known for about four hours?"

Meiko huffed, and looked down to the ground. "Shut up…"

Kaito laughed at Meiko's red face. "Oh, Mei-chan, I'm only trying to get this poor, drunk girl to safety! If anything, you should be blaming yourself for giving her the alcohol-"

"Shut up," said Meiko with a glare.

Kaito laughed, and was about to say something, but the knives that Meiko was glaring his way made him shut his mouth.

They walked the rest of the way in awkward silence, Meiko glaring at the pavement, Kaito sweating at the thought of Meiko's angry mood.

* * *

"Oh my _god_ that girl seemed to get heavier with every step I took," said Kaito as he set the unconscious Luka down on the bed. Straight after, he plopped down in one of the chairs near the foot of the bed.

Meiko laughed from the doorway. "No-one said you had to carry her. You could've just dragged her by the arm across the cold, rough pavement, like she was a corpse."

Kaito sent her a confused look. "...What?"

"Nevermind." Meiko shook her head and headed for the door of the room. This "inn" was more like a hotel, and a fancy one at that - Meiko and Kaito were lucky they had their credit cards on them, as even the fee for one night was pretty steep.

"Let's go…" said Meiko, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway.

"Wait, Mei-chan! We can't just leave her here and disappear without a trace. She'll be scared when she wakes up!" Kaito exclaimed, before pulling Meiko back into the room and shutting the door behind her. "We should at _least_ leave her a note so she knows that we're the ones that put her here."

Meiko's eyebrows furrowed. "Why do we need to do that?"

"Because she's probably scared of you after how you treated her when you were "drunk"," said Katio, using air quotes around the word drunk. "Honestly, it wasn't a good idea to fake being drunk just to see how she'd react!"

Meiko whimpered. "But we do that with _every_ new Vocaloid! We can't break the chain now!"

Kaito sighed, before pulling the notepad and pen he always had on him out of his pocket. "Hmm…" Kaito wondered what he should say for a few seconds, before out the note. When he was done, he read it out.

" _Dear Luka-san,_

 _We have paid for this room for you because you were really drunk and you wouldn't tell us your address. When you wake up, I highly recommend that you call your parents and tell them that you are alright, as we don't want them to worry sick about you._

 _Love,_

 _Meiko and Kaito._ "

A few seconds passed, before Kaito went "Oh!" and added a little extra note to the bottom.

" _PS: Meiko was only acting drunk before. Don't mind her. She's actually a nice person at heart._ "

Kaito looked at Meiko expectantly. "So, what do you think?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine, let's just go, I can't believe I just realised that I haven't drunk anything today-"

"Wait, but you did drink something. Actually, you drunk quite a lot."

"No, but the drinks at the party were free, and I didn't even drink enough to feel even a little bit buzzed! So c'mon, let's go!" Meiko impatiently walked back towards the door, and waited for Kaito, tapping her foot.

Kaito sighed at Meiko's eagerness ( _can she not get so excited over alcohol for once?_ ) before putting the note on Luka's pillow, just in front of her face, so that she would undoubtedly see the note and know who her valiant saviours were.

Just as he was about to turn around and leave with Meiko, a soft hand took a firm hold of his wrist. As the move was unexpected, Kaito jumped, and turned around faster than Meiko would go after free sake.

"Mmmph," groaned Luka in her sleep, "don't leave me…."

Kaito's heart melted at Luka's adorableness. She didn't want him to leave…

"...No, Miku-chan, don't go…"

Kaito stared at her. _...She's dreaming of Miku?_

Kaito looked over to Meiko, who was scowling at him. _She must be really desperate for that free alcohol, huh?_

Gently, Kaito tried pulling his hand out of Luka's grasp, but she was relentless with her hugging. After a good few seconds of silent struggle, Kaito gave up, and his and went limp. Luka grabbed the hand, still sound asleep, and rubbed it against her face while saying Miku's name over and over.

Blushing at the thought of what was going through Luka's mind, he turned around to Meiko. "She's not letting go of me!" he whisper-yelled at her, a pleading look in his eyes. He tried tugging his hand back towards him again, even though he knew it was helpless, and, as expected, Luka carried on hugging it like it was her lifeline.

Meiko looked up from the floor as she heard Kaito's plea, and had to stifle her laughter. Luka was there, clutching Kaito's hand while mumbling something incoherent. Still asleep, Luka slowly dragged his hand from her cheek to her mouth…

Kaito looked at Luka, horrified. Just before his hand touched her lips, he gently moved his hand away, and rested it on the pillow, just next to the note. Kaito sighed in relief when Luka let go of his hand.

...Only to have her rest her head on it instead.

He was divided. He could either try and yank his hand out from underneath Luka's head really quickly and risk her waking up and screaming ( _to be honest_ , he thought, _she could do anything in her state…_ ) or her could just leave it there and hope that she moves herself, saving him from doing anything wrong.

He contemplated hard for a good minute, wondering what to do, when Luka's eyes shot open, startling Kaito.

"Wha- Luka? You're awake?" he asked. Luka didn't reply - her blue eyes kept staring into his own, and it was quite uncomfortable. He waved a hand in front of her face, but still she held his gaze, not even blinking.

"Luka… are you alright?" Still, she didn't answer him, her steely gaze unwavering.

There was a heavy feeling in his heart. _...Was this what Meiko was talking about earlier, when she said she looked dead?_

Sure enough, Luka looked dead. Her blank eyes just looked up at him, and her body hadn't moved at all. It didn't even seem like she was _breathing_.

He tried moving his head around to see if her eyes would still keep themselves trained on his. They didn't. As soon as he moved his head, her eyes looked straight up at the ceiling.

Kaito was starting to panic now. Just as he was turning around to face Meiko and tell her what was up, Luka sprung up from the bed and started laughing like a lunatic. Once again, Kaito was startled, and flinched back, hitting his head on the low-hanging light.

"What the- Luka? What are you doing?"

Luka stood up shakily ( _seems like the alcohol hasn't worn off yet_ , thought Kaito), grasped Kaito's hand, and, to Kaito's surprise, started unbuttoning her navy blue blouse. Kaito's eyes widened and he flushed brightly, and tried to turn around, only to have Luka's hand in the way.

"Um, Luka…" he started, head turned away from her. "What are you doing?"

Luka giggled, Kaito's hand still in hers, and pulled him to face her fully, blouse now unbuttoned. "I'm taking off my clothes, obviously," she said. Kaito sighed.

"No, I mean, why are you taking your clothes off?"

"Because I'm going to sleep, duh." She shrugged off her blouse, letting go of Kaito's hand to let it fall for such a short amount of time that he didn't even realise she did it, leaving her only in a tank top and jeans. She then used her feet to pull off her socks, and started unbuttoning her jeans with her free hand.

"...If you're going to sleep, then why are you holding onto my hand?" he asked. "Actually, why are you holding onto my hand in the first place?"

"Because you said you're going with Meiko, and I don't want you two to leave… and your hand is soft." She said this with a pout on her face, and Kaito felt his resolve start to crumble.

He turned around to Meiko, who was still stood in the doorway. She had been watching the entire exchange from the sidelines, and was now doubled over in silent laughter. She loved the variety of expressions flittering across Kaito's face, and how normal Luka was treating everything. Her only regret was that she didn't have her phone on her to record it all!

"What?" said Meiko, trying to compose herself, but failing miserably. "I... just… ohmygod this is just too funny…" She cracked again and covered her red face with her hands, letting the laughter out loudly.

Kaito whimpered. "But Meiko… she's taking off all her clothes!"

Meiko laughed even louder. "Ah, Kaito, that's nothing! Soon, she's gonna pull you into bed with her…"

All the blood left Kaito's face, and he stood as still as a statue. "She's… wha… eh…" At that realisation, he became _that_ shocked that he couldn't even form complete sentences.

Meiko's laughter continued, but, eventually, it died down, and she decided to try and help the poor guy. It didn't take a genius to notice that Kaito was severely uncomfortable - Luka was now using both her free hand _and_ the one that was holding onto Kaito to take her jeans off, and, therefore, his hand was dangerously close to touching parts of Luka he _really_ didn't want to touch.

So, to help Kaito, she walked right over to him and started pulling off her clothes.

Kaito's brain practically shut down in disbelief.

"No… Meiko… you too?" he breathed, the sheer stupidity of his situation sinking in. "...You haven't even drunk that much today! Well, unless you snuck some drinks in when I wasn't there… I told you not to do that after what happened last time with Rin and Len-"

"No, shut up you idiot," cut off Meiko with an annoyed look on her face. "It's obvious she isn't going to let you go, so, like I always say, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!"" With that, she continued stripping.

To be honest, Meiko was feeling quite worn out, and wanted to go to sleep as well. She didn't really care for the free alcohol anymore; the display from Kaito and Luka earlier had been enough to entertain her. The alcohol would only corrupt her memories, and she wouldn't have any good blackmail material for either of them.

Kaito gave her a look, before looking down to the floor and sighing. Seconds passed, and now, he was the only one fully clothed in the room. He heard Meiko say his name, and he looked up.

"What, Meiko?" he asked.

Meiko was now only in her underwear. Kaito didn't dare turn his head towards where Luka was standing.

"C'mon, join us! If you don't, Luka'll just drag you into bed while you're still wearing all your clothes, and that'll be uncomfortable…" Meiko waggled her eyebrows and smirked. Kaito couldn't stop the smile from showing on his face, and sighed.

"Fine…" Kaito gave in, and turned towards Luka. She had, by some miracle, managed to get the tank top off, leaving her clad in only her underwear, just like Meiko. He fought the blush that was trying to show itself on his face.

"Luka, could you please let go of my hand please? I won't run away..." he said, a pleading look on his face.

Luka eyed him, before gripping his hand even tighter. Kaito sighed, and lifted the hand entwined with Luka's up to his chest. A pink eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Luka, please please _please_ let of my hand… I swear, on both mine and Meiko's life ("Hey! Leave me outta this!") that I won't run away, and I swear that I won't leave you alone with Meiko… just please, _please_ let go of my hand?" Kaito had resorted to begging. Literally.

Luka frowned, and looked down to the ground. She muttered something Kaito nor Meiko could make out, before dropping Kaito's hand.

 _YES!_ he thought. _I AM A FREE MAN!_ Kaito muttered a quick word of thanks before darting into the en-suite bathroom and pulling off everything he was wearing except his t-shirt and boxers. He folded everything up (taking special care with his favourite blue muffler), piled it up then walked back into the bedroom.

When he got back in, Meiko was looking inside the mini-fridge (for alcohol, he assumed) while Luka was under the covers of the bed, staring quite intently at the blue covers. He put his clothes on top of a table with a thud, and Meiko popped her head up.

"Eh?" she asked, looking up at Kaito. He stared her down with a knowing look on his face.

Meiko sighed. "We're going to sleep, you know. You don't need a t-shirt for that." With that, she marched up to him and pulled the t-shirt off his body before he could argue.

"Hey!" he said as she threw it off to the side, before rushing over and picking it up and holding it like a newborn child. "That's a clean t-shirt, and you don't know what chemicals they use to clean these carpets!"

Meiko scoffed. "Yeah, I don't care." She stretched, then kicked the mini-fridge door shut with her foot before climbing into the bed next to Luka, who was still staring away at the covers as intently as ever.

Kaito looked at her. "...We're not asking them to bring up a futon or something?" he asked.

Meiko shrugged before turning onto her side and facing away from Luka, who was now laying down flat on the bed and staring up at the ceiling.

Kaito gave her a sad look and whimpered. "B-But… I don't wanna sleep next to her! She'll death-grip my arm the entire night, and, by morning, all my circulation will be cut off! Please, Meiko, just let me ask them for another futon-"

"Oh shut up you big baby," she said, not even turning to face him. "You could just sleep next to me, and, besides, didn't you promise Luka that you wouldn't leave her alone with me?"

Kaito remained silent, and looked at the floor.

"Heh, I win. Now, let me get my beauty sleep." With that, she pulled the covers over her head, and, within seconds, Kaito heard snoring coming from her direction.

Kaito sighed, and gave up. He turned the lamp off, making the room pitch-black, then fumbled his way into the bed. As he pulled the covers up over his face, he realised he wasn't too sure of whether he had gotten in on Meiko's side, or on Luka's. Though, by this point, he had become too tired to care (just the act of getting into the bed was enough to force his body to relax) and tried to drift off the sleep.

Though, before he fell asleep, he felt a hand on his wrist. The hand was soft, and he couldn't feel any long fingernails, like what Meiko had. Then, it dawned on him, and he gulped.

Needless to say, he had a quite bit of trouble falling asleep that night.

* * *

Meiko and Kaito (whom Meiko had called in when she forgot a bit of what happened herself) finished recounting their epic tale of the previous evening's events, and looked at Luka excitedly, seemingly happy with their version of events.

"So," said Meiko, "basically, you met some people, including an old friend, got drunk, then ended up scarring poor little Kaito and draining his bank account of all the money he got from his recent song release." She smiled, before giving Luka her full attention. "So, whaddya have to say to that?"

Meiko wasn't surprised that she was met with silence.

Luka stared at the ground, much like she did with the ceiling in her drunken stupor, and there was not a single inch of her body that wasn't blushing bright red. Meiko could easily tell she was trying hard not to go and curl up into a corner and cry. Her hands were balled up into fists, and Meiko could almost hear all the insults Luka was throwing at herself in her head.

Meiko gulped, and looked towards Kaito, asking him for help. He noticed the look in her brown eyes, and took a long look at her. A minute passed, and Luka was still in her perpetually embarrassed state, and Meiko and Kaito were still awkwardly standing there.

Eventually, Kaito spoke. "Luka…" The pinkette didn't look up.

Meiko's eyebrow raised. She managed to get that Luka was at least _some_ form of social anxiety (the face Luka made when Meiko acted drunk was _actually_ priceless) but she didn't think that it was _this_ bad.

Kaito opened his mouth to say something, but Meiko beat him to it. "Sorry Luka… I didn't think that you'd be, y'know, _this_ embarrassed about last night's events-" Meiko realised that what she said could be taken in a bad way right after she said it, and, somehow, Luka got even redder.

Meiko swore under her breath before continuing. Honestly, Kaito was having a bigger influence on her than she thought! "I swear Luka, I didn't mean it like that! We would never take advantage of you!"

Meiko wracked her brain for an appropriate way to continue the conversation. "Uh… so…"

Luckily for her, Kaito said something. "So… Do you want anything to eat? Everyone tells me that my cooking's really good, so I'd like to make something for you, if that's okay?"

Luka's head rose the smallest amount at Kaito's words. She was about to decline (that is, if her voice actually let her make any noise) when her stomach rumbled loudly. Embarrassed, she nodded her head ever so slightly, her face as red as ever.

Kaito glanced at Meiko before grabbing his folded clothes, throwing them on, then leaving the room. Meiko watched the door fall shut behind him as the room fell silent.

Meiko coughed. "So… when are you recording your first song?" The atmosphere was becoming more tense with every passing second, and, although Meiko liked a little bit of drama, she felt that Luka didn't really love it like she did.

Luka's head shot up, her eyes wide. "Uh…"

Meiko winced. "Ah, sorry, you wouldn't know that, would you? You were only signed yesterday morning and stuff-"

"Um, a-actually, Yamada-san said I needed to be there t-today at t-ten…" said Luka, cutting Meiko off.

Meiko stared at her, then opened the door and peeked at the massive clock. She noted the time, then walked back into the room.

"Well, shit," she said, throwing her hands up into the air. "It's quarter past two!"

Meiko quickly noticed that Luka's face had gone from tomato red to as pale as a ghost. "Ah, but don't worry, they'll let you off, just mention our names and you'll be fine!"

The worried look still hadn't left Luka's face. "B-But-"

"No buts," said Meiko, shushing her with a finger. "Now, go put some clothes on and we'll go out to eat!"

Luka was about to walk away, but then she stopped.

"Huh? What's up?" asked Meiko, turning around to face Luka.

"W-Well, isn't K-Kaito going to c-cook something?" she stuttered.

Meiko sniggered. "He can't really cook. Though, we _do_ tell him that his cooking's nice, and the poor soul's so naive that he actually believes it, but he can't. Trust me. I've had to put up with his food more than once, and it is _not_ nice." She sniggered again at Kaito's cooking "skills" before turning around to pick up her clothes.

"W-What are we going to eat, then?" asked Luka, still awkwardly stood in the same place she had been in for the past couple of hours.

Meiko paused, then shrugged. "I dunno. Probably ice-cream. Kaito likes ice-cream, and there's this shop that we like that do, like, _every_ flavour ever. They've got the classics, like vanilla and chocolate, but they've also got some random ones, like sake, my all-time favourite flavour, tuna, and even leeks!" Meiko stopped speaking to let Luka take in her words. But, she couldn't help sneaking in one little comment… it couldn't do her any harm, could it?

"Miku _loves_ the leek ice-cream, y'know."

Luka's skin, which had (miraculously) gotten back to it's regular colour, flushed as red as a traffic light. Meiko had to turn around and act busy to not burst out laughing.

"W-Wha… B-But- I don't- W-Well, that is-" stuttered Luka uncontrollably.

"Ah, but did I mention anything about you and Miku?" Meiko spoke before her brain could think of the possible consequences.

And with that one comment, Luka slipped back into her perpetually embarrassed state, and stood as still as a statue.

Meiko didn't even have time to regret her actions before the feeling of dread overcame her.

 _Fuck… now I'm gonna have to go through all that soppy shit again, aren't I?_

* * *

 **AN:** Oh my god I have actually finished this at May 1st 23:58 I need to upload now now now


	5. The Diva Lifestyle

Luka sighed as she stared at the intimidating white sheet in front of her.

...She never thought that it would be this hard to write a song. Though, she figured, this _was_ the song that would, you know, make or break her lifelong dream ever since she can't even remember… So, yeah, maybe she had the right to be nervous about it. Just a little bit.

After wasting four minutes having an intense staring contest with the unrelenting piece of paper, Luka pulled out her phone. _Well_ , she thought as she entered her passcode, _if I'm not gonna get any work done, I might as well try and do_ something _productive, like beat my high score in Dopey Fish…_

Just as the game started, Luka heard three solid raps on the door, and jumped, making her drop her phone. As she bent down to pick it up, she thought about all the times she had dropped her phone in the short space of time she had it. It must've been, like, at _least_ four times… Luka considered herself lucky that she bought a good case.

The door opened, and Kaito and Meiko walked in, the tall, blue-haired one holding a blue bento box. Tiredly, Luka smiled at them, before falling back into her desk chair with a sigh.

Meiko smiled at Luka. "How's my favourite pinkette coming along with her song?" she asked, plopping into a white chair in the corner.

"...Not so well." Luka rubbed her eyes, then looked down at the piece of paper in front of her. "I can't think of anything to write about…"

"Wait," said Kaito, looking at her confusedly. "Didn't you write the song that you sung at your audition to work here?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't really think that I'd actually get the job," said Luka. "Besides, I wrote that song ages back, before Crypton even existed. They want me to write a new one for this, and I… can't." She leaned back into her desk chair and sighed again.

Kaito smiled. "I have something that'll cheer you up." He got up and walked over to Luka. "Here." He gave her the box, and she opened it, a _delighted_ grin spreading across her face.

Over the past few days, where Luka had to go to Crypton every day for at least a few hours to get accustomed to the huge building, Kaito and Meiko had always made it their business to come and talk to her for a bit. She saw Rin and Len a couple of times, but they were pretty busy, so it was mainly Kaito and Meiko who she talked to. From their regular chats, she'd managed to lose some of her stiffness when around the two, as well as learn the odd thing about them. She'd found out that Kaito really couldn't cook no matter what he personally believed (Luka had already suffered from a bout of mild food poisoning because of his "cooking") and that Meiko liked to swear… a lot.

"Luka, don't fucking eat that," whispered the brunette to Luka when Kaito's back was turned. Luka nodded, and set the box down next to all the scrunched up paper balls. "...I'll eat it later," said Luka when Kaito asked why she wasn't eating, a concerned look on his face. "I'm not feeling that hungry right now…"

Kaito's eyes fell downcast, but immediately lit back up again. "So, do you wanna tag along to the cafeteria with us? Even if you're not hungry, we can chat! I think Rin and Len are free today…" he suggested, thinking about the twins.

Luka frowned. "But I really need to get this done…" She looked longingly at the piece of paper, willing lyrics to start magically appearing on it.

"Maybe if you come to the cafeteria with us, you'll be able to get some inspiration," said Meiko, getting up from her chair. "'Cos, y'know, this room isn't the most _exciting_ place on earth…" she said with a raised eyebrow, gesturing to plain white walls and beige carpet.

Luka sighed and got up. "Fine… but you two are paying if I actually buy something..."

Meiko snorted. "Coming from the girl who's dad's literally got billions of yen."

"Girls, girls, calm down," said Kaito, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. "She doesn't need to buy anything, 'cos she's got my food to eat!" With his head held up high, he strided ahead of both the girls, one of which looked sick, and the other laughing silently at the other's misfortune.

Needless to say, Luka really didn't want to eat Kaito's food. So, not even batting an eyelash, she walked over to the desk, opened the blue box and knocked it straight off the desk and into a potted plant.

Meiko looked at her incredulously. "...What did the fucking plant ever do to you?"

Luka just shook her head and walked towards the door. "I… I just really don't wanna eat that," was all she said.

With that, both ladies walked out of the room, one feeling slightly guilty (but only a really tiny bit 'cos she didn't want to die because of nasty food and it wasn't like plants could eat Kaito's "food" anyway and be affected and stuff) and the other looking on with a newfound respect for her friend.

 _Woah_ , she thought, bemused. _Luka's actually got some badass chick genes in her! Who knew!?_

* * *

The group of five sat down at a table, each with a plate of food in front of them. Luka had some tuna sushi (she had somehow become hungry on the walk there and didn't want to waste everyone's time by walking back to her room, she told Kaito), Meiko had a mini sandwich platter, Kaito had some ice cream, and Rin and Len had some noodles.

"So," said Kaito once everyone was settled down, "...how's life?"

Everyone looked at him, then at each other, waiting for someone to say something.

"Not too bad, really," said Rin, breaking the silence. "Me and Len have to go shoot some music videos and look at some songs, and then there's a nationwide tour when Miku gets back from hers," she said, prodding at her food, "right, Lenny?"

Len looked up from his noodles, and chewed quickly, swallowing in them down. "Uh, yeah."

Silence settled over the group of five as everyone focused on their food.

Meiko finished her food first, swallowing down the last bites of a cheese sandwich. "So, Luka here's having a bit of trouble writing a song…"

Immediately, Rin jumped into action. "Ah, I know!" shouted Rin, slamming a fist onto the table. "Make it about oranges! Like, how they're _soooooo_ tasty, you'd die for one! Oh! Or you could make it about road rollers! 'Cos, of course, who doesn't like road rollers!? There's literally, like, _so_ many things you can do with them! Go to the supermarket, on a countryside drive, even terrorise people if you really wanted..."

Rin carried on talking about her "super-duper utterly amazeballs" song ideas, everyone else listening half-heartedly as the hyperactive girl blabbered on. Luka sank into her seat a bit. _This song is never going to get written…_ She twirled her chopsticks between her fingers as she listened to all of Rin's ideas.

"You could write about a boy that you loved, but then he had to go away to war, leaving you heartbroken! Or, if that isn't good, then you could write about a boy that you loved, but you felt the connection was slowly dying, and then you pulled the plug and broke up with him, even though it, like, kills you a bit on the inside!" Luka looked at Rin intently as she spoke on. Some of her ideas were... actually pretty good…

But then, Len made himself known. "Colours…" he said while gazing out of the window.

Distracted by her brother's quiet words, Rin stopped talking and looked at him. "What do you mean, "colours"?" she asked, shooting him a look, obviously very annoyed that he'd disturbed her train of thought with a meaningless word.

"She could right a song about colours," he said nonchalantly.

Rin sighed overdramatically. "The rainbow song already exists, Len-"

"Shut up." His childish sister sniggered as he fell back into his seat, watching everyone else.

Obviously, no-one understood what he was talking about, their faces contorted with confusion. Sighing, he sat up straight, and faced towards everyone else.

"There's loads of different colours out there with different connotations and ideas behind them and stuff, yeah? So, she could write a song about the different colours, each of them relating to a different feeling, or different memories, or something." After he finished speaking, he dug back into his noodles.

"But," said Rin, grabbing everyone's attention, "I think my ideas are _so_ much better! I mean, imagine it." She then stood up on her chair, drawing the attention of the other people in the cafeteria, and gestured wildly in front of her. "Luka is stood there, wearing an elegant pink kimono, and is looking into the distance, reminiscing about her childhood friend, who she only realised she loved when he went to fight in the war, where he'd certainly shake hands with death, and never see her again… Dramatic, is it not?" She gave a little curtsey, before plopping back down to her regular height.

Meiko spoke up. "I kinda like Len's idea, but you'd have to make the whole song deep and stuff," she said, wrapping an arm around Luka, who was staring at the tuna in front of her, deep in thought. "I'd say, if you wanna get to the top of the charts quickly, you'd have to go for an shallow song like Rin's."

"What do you mean, "shallow song"?" asked Luka, looking up from her tuna sushi. "There's plenty of popular songs out there, and a lot of them have deep meanings… "

Meiko's eyes widened. "Ah, shit, I didn't mean it like that! I only meant "shallow" in the sense that…" She paused as she carefully thought about her wording. "...Everyone else does songs like that, songs about love, and they get to the top. Not trying to insult anyone here, but look at Miku's most famous songs. _Melt_ , _World is Mine_ … they're all about love. It's a tried and tested topic."

Luka thought for a moment. "...That's exactly why I want to write about Len's idea."

Meiko looked at her, bewildered. "...Eh?" she asked, obviously very confused. She'd just explained about why love songs are going to get her places… so why was she going to take the other idea!?

"Like you said, everyone sings love songs. I want to be different, I want people to… to _distinguish_ me from other singers," she said. Her head sprung up. "Hold on, that's a good idea." She grabbed a napkin from the little holder on the table and pulled a pen out of her pocket. In the middle of the napkin, she wrote "please distinguish me" in English, then drew little arounds coming out of it, writing words like "thank you" and "I love you" at the end of them.

"I've got a good idea for a song," she said, before getting up and jogging towards the exit. "Thanks, Len."

As the pinkette quickly made her way out, the rest of the group looked at each other, and then at Len.

"Woah," said Rin, seemingly confused at what had just happened. "Like, did you even understand what she was on about back there?"

"No clue, man," said Meiko, tapping the table in thought.

"Did you see what she was writing on that napkin?" asked Kaito, glancing at Meiko and Rin.

"Yeah," chorused the two girls, before looking at each other and bursting out laughing at their "twinsies-ness".

"Like, didn't she say she wasn't doing a love song?" questioned Rin after calming herself down, rubbing an imaginary beard on her chin in thought. "'Cos she wrote some pretty loved-up lyrics on there."

"She didn't really give a concrete answer, though…" mused Len, still staring out of the window.

Rin gave him a look. "Since when have you been so philosophical?" she asked, taking a sip of her orange juice.

Len smiled sadly. "...There's a lot you don't know about me." With that, he turned back to his food. "But, anyway, have you heard?" A smile so cheerful it looked almost rehearsed brightening up his features, he continued, "Internet's hired two new singers…"

"Oh yeah, I heard about them," said Meiko, pulling out her phone, unlocking it and grimacing. "This one looks like a carrot. And that other one looks like an eggplant."

"An… eggplant?" asked Rin, confused, before getting up and leaning over Meiko's shoulder.

"Yes. A fucking eggplant."

"That can't be true." As Meiko and Rin argued about how people could look like vegetables, Kaito left to get more ice-cream, and Len went back to his and Rin's work room.

Silently locking the door behind him, he pulled out his guitar and a bunch of bundled-up paper that had been folded away inside the soundhole, the sticky label on top of it reading "Miku's Song".

He practiced the song for the umpteenth time, striving to get it perfect.

 _She'll notice me… She'll notice me one day…_

* * *

Meanwhile, Luka sat in her own work room, viciously scribbling on a piece of paper. Len's idea had kickstarted her creative mind, and now the ideas were flowing out of her so fast that she had trouble getting them down onto paper before they vanished from her brain.

"Fill me in…" she muttered absentmindedly as her cramping hand moved over the once-white sheet of paper, the words leaving a bright turquoise mark that was lost in the mix of all the other colours.

What seemed like hours passed, the diligent teen hunched over the antique desk, filling a whole tree's worth of paper with ideas for lyrics or melodies.

Another paper was marked by Luka's favourite ink, the idea she wrote on it better than the last. A grim thought crept into Luka's mind as she realised at she'd only get one shot at a debut song, and that only one of her many ideas could be used.

Nevertheless, she pushed the sad thought out of her mind, and continued writing down her thoughts. The headphones encasing her ears and blasting music at ungodly volume levels prevented her from hearing a certain mischievous childhood friend of hers walk in.

"Lukaaaaaa-chan!" yelled the blonde, strutting into the room like she owned the place. "How is my number one old friend doin' this fine evening?" she asked, making herself comfortable in a beige beanbag chair near a bookshelf.

Luka didn't speak, her friend's words drowned out by the music blasting into her ears. Still, she carried on scribbling words down onto the paper, so caught up in her own little songwriting universe.

"...Luka?" Lily looked at the pinkette, her carefree expression morphing into one of annoyance. "Damn, she must be playing her music really loudly if she can't hear me through those open-back headphones…" she grumbled as she crossed the room.

Ideas flew about in Luka's headspace, the pinkette completely in the songwriting zone. _A burst of teal, dancing with a blob of pink? Nah, 'blob' doesn't sound that professional… how about a 'drop' of pink?_ The pen in Luka's hand slowed down as the pinkette formulated the idea. _Nah, maybe I should just leave the idea altogether. Why did I even make it pink and teal in the first place-_

"KYAAAAAA!" screeched Luka as she felt the headphones being yanked off her head, breaking at least thirty windows in the process. She clenched her fists and jutted out her writing hand, prepared to stab whoever it was with her pointy fountain pen, hopefully giving them ink poisoning and leaving them in an unconscious heap on the beige carpet, ready for her to get away and call the police.

Lily recoiled back just before the pen could touch her, holding her phone up in front of her as a feeble means of defence. "Woah woah woah calm down Luka, calm down," she said urgently, before gingerly lowering the phone and revealing her scared face. "It's only me," she breathed, before crossing the room and carefully sitting back down onto the beanbag chair, hugging her knees to her chest. "Fuck, you looked like you wanted to kill me…"

Luka, whose face had gone from being scared-alarmed to worried-alarmed as she realised who it was behind her, dropped her pen to the desk and went over to Lily, bowing profusely.

"I'm so sorry Lily I didn't mean to alarm you I was just scared that someone had tried to come into my room and was going to attack me and I don't wanna die so I tried stabbing you without realising it was you but then I realised and then I felt bad and-" rambled Luka at the speed of light, before Lily pulled her up by the shoulders and, looking at her straight in the eye, patted her head.

Luka couldn't help but smile at her friend's gesture. When they were younger, Lily used to get in trouble quite a bit, and complained a lot about how unfair the teachers were on her. Luka was the poor soul who had to put up with the blonde's ranting, and, one day, managed to make her be quiet by patting her head. From that day on, they patted each other's head as a silent way of saying either 'shut up', 'I don't care', or 'everything's gonna be okay'.

"I missed this," breathed Luka, a reminiscent look taking over her features.

A melancholy look suddenly appeared on Lily's face. "...Yeah…" Luka wanted to ask Lily what was up, and why she suddenly seemed sad. But she wasn't stupid. If Luka's little statement about their history made the usually upbeat and uncontainable Lily go quiet after years have passed, then what would her asking directly about it do? Instead of using words, Luka gently removed the blonde's hand from her head and placed her own atop her friend's head, reversing the action.

A melancholy grin spread across Lily's face. "Nah, I'm fine Luke, no need to go all soppy on me now."

The blonde couldn't contain the laughter at her friend's bewildered face. "What did I do now?" she asked between guffaws. Oh, she knew _exactly_ what she did.

"...Luke?" asked Luka, slowly removing her hand from Lily's head. "Did you really just call me Luke?"

"Yup!" chirped the laughing girl, wiping a tear from her eye. One look at Luka's puzzled face set her off on another one. Luka _clearly_ didn't remember that certain event.

"Remember when your mum and dad let you invite me over for our first sleepover when we were four?" she asked, all the laughter having escaped her system. Luka nodded, her eyes narrowing as she tried to recall the events of that evening herself.

Lily continued her story, trying to get all the laughter out of her. "We'd taken some of Luki's clothes, and we were dressed up like dudes, and then we tried to sneak into kitchen and steal some food, but your dad was having a conversation with some random important American dude, and then they saw us, and then he thought you were a dude and called you 'Luke', and then your dad had to explain that you were actually a girl-"

"Oh yeah…" said Luka, cutting off Lily. She went a bit red at the memory, but chuckled anyway. "I can't believe I forgot about that…" She let out a gentle laugh at the memory, the grin on her face widening as she remembered something that happened after. "Oh yeah, that same man came back after…"

"Ooh, do tell, do tell," said Lily, her left eyebrow twitching in anticipation of Luka's story.

"So he came back, like… I think four years or so later, when Luki was going through his long hair phase, and that same guy called him Lucy, and I just wanted to mess about with him, so I put my hair up in a cap and went down there, introducing myself as Luke. I kept up the joke while talking to him, and, honestly, the look on Father's face was priceless! I would've taken a picture if I had my phone on me-"

Someone knocking on the door interrupted Luka's anecdote. The girls fell quiet. Luka looked at Lily, confused, while Lily's eyes widened. She made an 'o' shape in front of her eye, before hiding behind the desk chair. Luka made a confused face at her friend's actions, but did what she asked nevertheless, and looked through the peephole. The colourful hair of the President of Crypton greeted her.

Before opening the door, she looked at Lily, who watched the door expectantly. She waved to catch her attention, before, a mad blush spreading over her cheeks, gesturing to her hair wildly and pointing at one of her many multicoloured sheets of ideas. Miraculously, Lily seemed to understand Luka's mess movements, and, her eyes widening, put a finger to her lips, before slowly sinking behind the desk chair and out of sight.

The President knocked on her door again, and Luka jumped. She was a bit confused as to why Lily didn't want the head of the company to see her… Still, she opened the door, and smiled gladly at the young man, who smiled back.

"Megurine-san, how are you?" the man politely asked, bowing to her. Awkwardly, she bowed back, her actions stiff and robotic. She hadn't seen the man in almost a week, and had sort-of maybe slightly forgotten how to treat her boss…

They stood in silence, the confident man looking expectantly at the younger woman, who had a blank look on her face. Was she forgetting something…?

"Not to be rude or anything, but aren't you going to invite me in?" said the man with a tilt of his head, his expression as positive as ever.

Luka stared at him for a few more seconds after he spoke, realisation slowly dawning over her. "...Oh." Sheepishly, she stepped to the side and gestured inside the room, muttering unintelligible phrases that the President took as an invitation inside, to which he nodded and walked in, taking off his shoes at the door.

"Wow, he's treating it like he's just walked into my house…" she thought as she shut the door behind him.

"Well, the room is technically yours, Megurine-san. I might own the building, but you're free to do whatever you want with the room," he stated as he looked around, taking in the room's unchanged, dull interior.

 _Wait, did I say that aloud?_ Blushing, she shook the thought out of her mind. "If you don't mind me asking, does that mean I get to do whatever I want to this room… um, yeah, whatever I want in this room?" _Darn it_ , the teen thought, internally grimacing. _I've forgotten his name…_

"Yes, as long as it's within reason. And, if you've seen Rin and Len's room, you'll know that a lot of things are 'within reason'." He chucked, seemingly thinking about the twins, before clearing his throat and looking into Luka's eyes, taking on a more serious, professional demeanor, one that heavily contrasted with the bright hair on his head.

"So, Megurine-san, I've dropped by just to let you know that we've arranged to record the instrument tracks for the song tomorrow, so I'd need you to drop off any notation you've got for any instruments you want to use in the song at Studio 3 at some point today, or go to the producers in there for any help you may require-"

"I've actually got a question about that," she said, unintentionally cutting her boss off. She winced when she realised what she'd done, and quickly fell silent.

The older man didn't seem to mind, to Luka's relief. "And that is…?"

"Um, so I can actually play a lot of instruments to a high standard myself, so I was wondering if you, or the people in the studio or whoever, would let me record the song myself and mix it myself and… stuff." Luka trailed off and scratched the back of her head. _Did that come off as arrogant? I_ did _say 'myself' a lot… flip, I can't have him thinking that I believe I'm some big-headed diva who thinks that they're superior to everyone-_

"Really?" the President asked, raising an eyebrow.

Luka sweatdropped. _Fliphedoesn'tbelievememycareer'soverbeforeit'sevenbegunohdearlordmydreamhasbeencrushedhelpmeee-_ Forcing down the knot in her throat, Luka nodded. His gaze was intense, Luka noticed. And her palms were sweaty. And she felt like she was going to faint. God, she'd been there not even a month and she'd already fucked it all-

The President let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, that's… that's actually really convenient, you know," he said, wiping his eyebrow.

Luka looked at him, her mouth open in shock. The head of the company must've taken the look on her face as offence, though, as he immediately started speaking again.

"Not that I'm trying to say that you were burdening us, no, of course not, but it's just that some of the schedules of a couple of our producers were clashing a bit, but, if we gave you a recording studio and just left you to it, then those producers would be able to finish off their collaboration.. Basically, it's a good thing." The man finished rambling, and looked at Luka excitedly. "But, even then, it's pretty cool that you can play all those instruments. Though, with your parents, I'd expect you to be musically gifted. Of course the child of one of the biggest music instrument companies ever's owners would be a music prodigy herself, right? You're whole family must be amazing at music!" he exclaimed, smiling widely at Luka.

Luka leaned back slightly, this time actually offended, as she heard the man talk about her musical skills, interpreting his words as mocking her parents and her background. The man didn't seem to notice her change of mood, though, and made his way back towards the door, slipping his shoes on. "Goodbye, Megurine-san!" he chirped happily, and strided out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Frowning, Luka looked at the place he was standing before he left. If Luka had heard him correctly (and she was pretty sure that her ears weren't failing her), then he'd been _kinda_ insulting to her parents and her brother…

Luka's train of thought was interrupted by a loud groan coming from behind her. Startled, the pinkette flinched and turned around, before remembering that Lily had been crouched in that same, awkward position throughout Luka's entire conversation with the owner of the building they were currently standing in.

Cringing at the thought of her friend's uncomfort, she walked over and lent her a hand, which Lily gladly took.

"Damn it," she said, stretching, "I never thought he'd shut up! God, when I wake up, my back's gonna be stiff as _fuck_ …" She groaned as she worked at loosening the tight muscles in her body.

Luka loudly inhaled. "Sorry, Lily. But, I need to ask, why'd you hide from him?"

"Nah, s'okay, and I might've started a small fire, like, a year ago, and Hiro ( _That's what his name was!_ thought Luka, mentally slapping herself) got really pissed at me, and kinda banned me from ever coming into the building again-"

"Wait, so how'd you get in today? And at the party?" asked Luka, giving Lily a confused look. Then, it clicked in her mind. _Ohhh, so_ that's _probably why she was in a rush to leave at the party… Maybe she didn't want to see Hiro or the manager..._

Lily smirked. "Ah ha, now, my dearest Luka, that's for me to know and you to find out…" She grinned, before pulling out her phone and checking the time. "Soz Luka, but I kinda need to run. Internet need me to re-record the vocal track for a song, and they needed me there half an hour ago. Sincerest apologies!" With that, Lily ran out of the room, gone before Luka could so much as say 'goodbye'.

Seconds later, Luka's phone bleeped from its place on the desk. Curious, Luka looked at it, seeing a text from Lily.

 _Oi luke dnt tell rinny-kins or lenny-boo i was there n dont tlel anyone yeha n gud luk wiv ur song ok_ /^-^/

Luka giggled at her friend's text, the nicknames for Rin and Len being particularly sweet. Just before she put her phone away, it bleeped again. Sighing, yet smiling, Luka awakened the phone again, and smirked at the text.

 _Oh n txt me yeah cos we need ta catch up n go out sometym so yeah figur etaht out :D_

"Yeah, Lily, will do," she said to herself absentmindedly. She locked her phone and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. Then, she turned around, and started on the hardest thing she'd ever have to do life, something she'd been procrastinating doing by talking to Lily - picking which idea would be turned into her all-important, one and only debut single out of all the pieces of paper strewn about the workspace.

 _...Darn it._

The next day, Luka walked through the doors of Crypton tower at nine o'clock sharp, eyes bright and brain fully awake, ready to record her debut single. The previous evening, she had, somehow, managed to decide on which idea out of the 127 she had come up with (no, she did _not_ count to procrastinate on the song...) she would turn into a fully-fledged song. Needless to say, she hoped the three hours she spent being indecisive about her song wouldn't end up being a waste.

Luka smiled at the receptionist, before heading over to the elevator and pressing the button for the twenty-second floor. The doors glided shut, trapping Luka inside the small space with nothing but the elevator music to accompany her.

She was a bit surprised to hear Miku's latest single, 'Kimi no Taion', playing through some pretty high-quality speakers. _This is different to what you'd usually get for elevator music…_

Then, she remembered where she was. _Ohhh_ , she though, face going a little red at her obliviousness, ' _course Crypton of all places would play Miku's music in an elevator._

As her eyes followed the grain of the wood beneath her feet, she realised that, on all the other days she had spent at least thirty seconds of her day in the elevator, she had never noticed the music playing. She reminded herself to be more observant about her surroundings. Because, Luka never knew, she could miss out on something important one day and end up insulting someone or something. Luka didn't want _that_ , not at all.

A soft chime told Luka that she had reached her floor. A small smile emerging on her face, she stepped out of the elevator, and started walking down the corridor. Suddenly, she stopped.

 _...Where am I supposed to be, exactly?_

Luka's face went a bit red as she stood, silent and unmoving, in the middle of the corridor. She considered herself lucky that the corridor was deserted, since she probably looked a bit lost, like a little kid lost in a supermarket, looking for her mother to find her. Someone would probably grab her hand and lead her out of there, thinking she's a trespasser. Even if she didn't look like that, she definitely _felt_ like it.

Willing the blush on her face to disappear, she decided to man up and go and ask someone where she was supposed to be. She couldn't be shy forever - no, not now that she's going to be a national pop star. All the shyness and awkwardness needed to _go_. Besides, if she couldn't even privately ask someone a completely valid question she had now, as an average, not-famous-at-all human being, how was she ever going to answer an interviewer's questions in front of thousands, maybe even _millions_ of people as a diva?

Sucking in a deep breath, she knocked on the door of the studio to her left, the sign reading 'Studio 3', and waited for a reply. Patiently, she stood there, mentally planning out what she was going to say to the person on the other side.

A good minute or so passed, Luka in the hallway. Normally, Luka was a pretty patient person, but, today, she was itching to start making music, and let her ideas take form. Huffing, she decided to just open the door. If they were doing something important in there, they'd lock it, right? And, even then, Luka needed to get used to taking charge of the situation - yeah, this wasn't really _taking charge_ per say, but it was letting her presence be known, and that was _something_ , right?

Left hand firmly on the door handle, she pushed it down, taking in a breath to start apologising. Because she needed to have a good image, didn't she? Try and make the best first impression she could before her words dwindled into shy stuttering and incoherent muttering, right?

"Excuse me- oh."

To Luka's great, _great_ relief, the room was empty. She let out the breath she had taken in, and was about to leave and force herself to knock on another door, when a small, pink post-it note with her name written on it in big, extremely legible bubble writing caught her attention. Intrigued, she picked it up, along with the piece of paper it had been resting on top of.

 _Megurine-san,_

 _I've reserved this studio for you for today and tomorrow. Please, feel free to do whatever you need to, and use anything in the room as you see fit. If you require any assistance, ask the people in the room across the hallway from you (Studio 2) and they will be happy to help._

 _Best regards,_

 _Yamada Hiro_

 _President of Crypton Future Media_

Acknowledging the letter, Luka nodded, and set it off to the side. Stepping fully into the room, she eyed the recording booth, along with the instruments the President had set out for her. Luka figured that, with the assortment of guitars and bass guitars (some of them, to her delight, bearing the Megurine logo) she had at her disposal, combined with the full drum kit and keyboard she saw, she'd be able to make a great song. Or, at least, what she desperately hoped and prayed to every deity and god out there would be a great song.

Luka found herself being inspired to work just by looking at all the equipment. When she stepped into the recording booth herself, though, she felt her knees go a little bit weak.

It was so much bigger than it looked like from the outside.

From the mixing desk, it seemed like the room only had an acoustic drum kit, two keyboards, and a couple of different amps in it. When she actually was inside the room, she saw how much it really contained. There was a top-of-the-range electric drum kit in the room, as well as a much, much bigger variety of amps she originally saw. The thing she wanted to play with the most in the room, though, was the Steinway concert grand nestled in the corner of the room, brooding, as if only those who were worthy could let their eyes linger on it.

Luka, admittedly, had a massive soft spot for the piano. No-one would've guessed that she - with her tomboyish ways and love of hard rock and guitars - would indulge in a bit of Beethoven to unwind. Playing it, not listening to it, that is. After all, the piano was the first instrument she ever learned to play, taught by her grandma.

Gliding her fingers over the satin white finish, Luka felt shivers going down her spine. This piano wasn't antique like the one Luka's mother had (and had banned her from even being in the same room as since that time she had eaten some tuna near it when she was, like, three), but that didn't detract from it's beauty. All nine feet of it.

Luka wondered why Crypton even put a concert grand inside a studio like this. These pianos were worth more than twice the average person's annual salary, not to mention the fact that they weighed the same as five baby elephants. There's no way Crypton would be able to get enough use out of this piano for it's worth in this studio.

Luka then pushed all those logical thoughts to the back of her mind, and gingerly sat on the bench. She couldn't stop the giddy look from taking over her features. It wouldn't kill anyone if she just had a little play about with it… right?

Hands shaking with excitement, Luka rested her fingers atop the faux ivory keys (the flawless, perfect faux ivory keys) and burst into the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, not bothering with a warm-up. Her slender fingers danced across the keys, a look of pure bliss taking over Luka's face as she played. The beautiful sound of the hammers striking the strings as Luka pressed the keys filled the room, a serene atmosphere taking over the whole room.

Luka lost herself in the music, her every emotion being expressed in the piece. One could feel the excitement and ecstasy Luka was experiencing, as well as the anxiety and pressure she felt about the song she had to record. It was breathtaking.

Sighing, Luka pounded out the last few notes, perhaps even more mellifluously than those she had started with. As the sound of the piano dissipated, the room settled into an unnatural silence once again, a silence that begged to be filled with the pure sound of great music.

Just as Luka was going to start playing Maple Leaf Rag, a loud series of claps bought her back to reality. Gasping, Luka jumped up from the piano bench and staggered back into the wall, eyes wide with fear.

 _Flipcrapsugarohmygosh who is there I didn't mean to use the piano that much don't hurt me-_

"Wow, Megurine-san, you're really good," praised the man, who Luka recalled as being Miku's manager ( _isn't he my manager now as well…?_ Luka wondered), "but that doesn't really look like working on a song to me. Unless you're planning on sampling Beethoven in your song, of course." The stern look on his face scared Luka more than a little bit, she had to admit.

Immediately, Luka's back straightened, before delving into a series of deep bows. "I'm sincerely sorry, um, Yamada-san (Luka had to hide the shock she felt at her own remembering of his name), but I couldn't help having a play on the piano because it's a beautiful instrument and I wanted to touch it and have a go and… yeah." Luka promptly shut herself up before she could go into full apologising mode, the intense blush on her cheeks putting tomatoes to shame.

The manager's eyes stayed locked on hers for a good few seconds, before the anger on his face melted away, and he laughed. "Heh," he chuckled, "no, Megurine-san, it's perfectly okay for you to use the instruments how you please."

Luka looked on, quite confused. She couldn't _help_ but be wary. For all she knew, the man stood in front of her could be testing her, seeing if she would take advantage of the instruments and let herself loose like a wild animal (which she so so _so_ wanted to do), or if she'd go back to working on the song and getting it recorded and done to the best of her ability…

"Megurine-san?" said the manager, catching Luka's attention. Sheepishly, she looked at him, a fierce blush spreading across her face.

"Uh, yeah?" she asked while chewing the inside of her cheek.

"I meant what I said about using the instruments, but, really, I just need to know how much progress you've made on the song," he said, eyes darting around the room.

Hastily, Luka reached for the sheets she had written the music out on, and gave them to him with a trembling arm. "Um, I've got all the, um, finalised parts down on paper, so I just need to record it, and then edit it, and then mix it, and then… yeah."

The manager furrowed his eyebrows. "Just out of curiosity, can you master?"

Luka shook her head, lips pursed. "Um, I thought I could just, like, ask someone to take a look at it after…" The pressure her teeth were applying on her inner cheek increased tenfold. _Did I get ahead of myself?_ she thought worriedly.

The manager nodded. "Yeah, that's completely fine. You never did say that you could master, after all." He paused, then nodded once again. "Okay, you seem to be know what you're doing. I'll be off, then." He bowed, and Luka clumsily bowed back.

"Uh, bye, Yamada-san."

"Goodbye, Megurine-san." He left, the door swinging firmly shut behind him. As soon as Luka was sure that there was no-one left in the room, she let out a massive sigh of relief. After wallowing in her freedom and stroking every single key on that downright beautiful piano (all eighty-eight of them), she decided to get up and start recording the song.

 _Finally_ , she thought, _something where I know what I'm doing with this song._

After delicately shutting the key cover over the piano keys, Luka got up and walked back to survey the instruments. Just when she was about to sit behind the drumkit and record the drum track for the song, she felt a little tug at the back of her mind. She stilled.

Those little tugs always meant something was up.

Sighing, she set the drumsticks onto the snare, and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands as the little voice in her brain relayed her thoughts.

 _This song is great and all, but what if what Meiko was talking about is true? What if this song doesn't boost you to the top of the charts? It's your debut single - you'll need to make everyone aware of your presence of the music scene with something popular, something people are already willing to spend their hard-earned cash on. That "something" is your simple pop song with easy to understand lyrics. Besides, you've already written one - and that is because you know I'm right. You wouldn't have written an extra song if you didn't doubt yourself, now would you?_

Luka thought long and hard about what she was telling herself. She had to admit, the voice had a point - Crypton could kick her out if her single sold poorly, and people _would_ buy a song that is similar to ones already in the charts - but she didn't want to release a song that wasn't _her_. And by no means was Luka one for sickly-sweet, happy songs, with all digitally-generated instruments and not a hint of a guitar solo in them.

She wasn't saying they weren't good, but, really, she was more a fan of rock songs. Miku's songs, though, were an exception. Luka could listen to Miku all day - it didn't matter if the song was something so _very_ obviously autotuned like Packaged, or if it was something slightly heavier, like Kimi no Taion. Miku songs were Miku songs. Miku was in them. Therefore, they were good enough for Luka to listen to.

Though, don't get her wrong, Luka would've prefered to listen to the latter over the former if she was given a choice. She just thought she'd point that out.

The pinkette sighed. One minute, she was pondering on whether or not she should abandon her original song choice ("Palette", a hard-hitting rock song with electronic influences and created by developing the ideas Len had given her) and go with something a bit more mainstream (like "Just Be Friends", an electric song about two people breaking up as they didn't love each other like they once did, from an idea Rin had given her)...

Luka banged her head against the rim of the snare drum as she leaned forward. It would probably be for the best if she went with the second song.

Besides, Luka didn't think that Crypton's fanbase (mostly young adults and teenagers, a lot of which were hardcore fangirls) would enjoy the rock anyway.

Ignoring the dejected feeling in her heart, she got up and exited the studio, making her way up to her work room on the twenty-ninth floor. As she unlocked the door and flung it open, she couldn't help but scrunch her face up.

Wow. The room really was unappealing. No wonder her creative brain refused to do its duty in this room.

Nevertheless, she quickly headed towards the white desk before picking up a pile of paper. Ruffling through it a few times, she tried to locate her other song. _Why isn't it he-_

 _Oh, crap._

Groaning, Luka closed her eyes, _this_ close to punching a hole in the soundproofed wall. Settling with a kick to the desk chair (to which she groaned - her shin hit the hard plastic instead of her foot), she pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked through her contact list. She needed _someone_ to bring her the papers. She couldn't exactly go and retrieve them herself - she was supposed to be working, and she didn't think that it'd look too good if she had to explain to the receptionist that she'd left some crucial papers at home.

She knew her mother and her father were busy with their work, so they were crossed off the list of eligible people. Luki was a reasonably good candidate, except that she'd left the sheets in her bedroom and Luki was not allowed in there under any circumstances after he'd cut and dyed her hair that one time as she slept. Besides, even if she did ask him, he'd make up some dodgy excuse about how he's busy or something.

With her immediate family crossed off the list, Luka had no choice but to ask one of Rin, Len, Meiko, Kaito or Lily to do it. She couldn't ask Rin and Len - first off, they were kids; then, she didn't know them well; next, they were busy people, being famous pop stars and all - and she was pretty sure Meiko and Kaito were free. She would've liked to ask Lily, though - the girl would probably snoop, but they'd known each other for ages. Too bad she'd said she was recording today.

But, to be completely honest, she didn't really want to let Meiko and Kaito into her house. She'd only known them for a couple of days, and Luka still hadn't _really_ gotten to know them and trust them…

Luka sat helplessly, panic arising in her chest as the clock ticked on. She needed _someone_ to go and get the papers…

A bleeping sound bought her out of her worried daze. Slightly relieved that she'd been given a distraction, she picked up the phone and glanced at the name on the screen. Smiling she answered it.

"Hi Lily-"

" _Luka, you know could you just tell me what room you're in?_ " whispered Lily hurriedly, the pitter-patter of footsteps coming through the phone speaker as she spoke. " _I've forgot and I keep seeing that stupid boss guy around and he's gonna kick me out if he sees me-_ "

"Wait, you're here? I thought you were recording something today."

" _Well yeah, but they're done. But which room are you in?_ "

"Actually Lily, could you do me a bit of a favour?"

" _Yeah, but, like, tell me in person since- shit, I almost fell, but yeah, tell me what room, like, now._ "

"Alright, alright, I'm in the third room on the twenty-second floor."

" _Fuck, I was knocking at the third room on the nineteenth floor… I'll be there in two seconds to be your slave._ "

"Thanks, Lily. You're the best!"

" _Okay, now shut the fuck up before I get caught and be banished out of the building._ "

Lily hung up, and Luka burst into a massive smile. Just when she needed it, luck decided to rear its head and improve her day. Even if she didn't particularly want to record this specific song, she still needed to record _something_ , and at least it was something she had written. And, hey, maybe, just _maybe_ , if she was quick enough with this first single, she'd get to record the other one after it.

That thought brightened her mood a little. Yeah, she'd make the first one, then record the other one after it, and ask Lily to choose which one to present. Lily was good at picking things. She'd pick correctly.

...Hopefully.

Hearing the doorknob jiggle, Luka turned around in her chair and smirked as she heard her childhood friend groan from the other side of the door.

"Luka?" asked the blonde, impatience laced in her words. "Could you let me in before both you _and_ me get in trouble?"

Getting up from the comfy desk chair, Luka unlocked the door and opened it, the woman on the other side practically leaping into the room.

"Luka," breathed the blonde, falling to her knees dramatically and stretching her arms outward to the grinning Luka, "thou art mine own hero! Whatever couldst I doth to repay thee?"

"For starters, you could go to my house and get the score that's on my desk," said Luka, tossing her house keys into Lily's lap.

Lily's head cocked like a confused puppy. "Where's my praise for learning to speak Shakespearean? I thought you'd be proud of me!"

Snorting, Luka shook her head. "Nah, I'm not. But I might be after you've gotten me that score."

Lily grumbled. "Fine. But if I get caught, it's on your shoulders."

Luka smiled sweetly. "You're the best!"

"So I've heard."

* * *

Groaning, Luka closed the music program with a violent click and slumped back in her chair. "Finally," she muttered as she stretched in her seat, satisfied with the tell-tale clicks from her back. She needed that stretch.

"Urgh," scowled Lily, putting her phone down to punch her in the arm, "don't do that. It sounds gross."

Luka chuckled. "It's gross, but it's satisfying."

"Can't argue with that." Lily stood up and walked towards her, eyeing all the instruments through the window. "Don't you ever," she asked, pointing her index finger at all the instruments, "just wanna bash out on that drumkit and do whatever? Or, like, just waste your life away on that guitar?"

Confusedly, Luka's eyebrows twitched. "Um… Can't say I do, Lily. Sorry."

Nodding, Lily's eyes narrowed as her hand slowly fell to the desk in a loose fist. "Gotcha."

With a confused sigh at her friend's words, Luka stood up and headed towards the door. "Come on, Lily," she said, jutting her head towards the door, "I need to drop these off at… I think studio 2, sometime today."

Lily gave her an incredulous look, but didn't say anything.

Luka gave her an incredulous back. "...What?" she asked. Her gaze flickered to the mirror behind the desk, making sure that there wasn't any food or sauce or some other embarrassing substance on her face or clothes or in between her teeth.

"My, my, Luke, have you forgotten already?" she asked, shifting in her chair. Leaning back in the chair, she put her hands behind her head and rested her hands on them. "Those important dudes out there? Yeah, they know my face. Can't be seen out there, no siree."

Her mouth forming an 'o' shape, she took a quick glance at the clock in the corner of the room before shrugging. "Do you think you could just wait here while I go drop this off then?" she suggested, dangling the usb stick between her thumb and first finger.

"Yeah, sure dude, go ahead," said the blonde, getting up to wave Luka out the door. "And nah, don't worry, I ain't gonna go through your bag or anything like that…"

Abruptly, Luka stopped and turned around. "...I don't know whether I should trust-"

"Oh yeah, no, it's fine," she assured, before laying a hand over her heart. "I, Lily Masuda, will not go through your stuff. Oh, and I didn't mess up your bed when I went to you house. That was Luki, not me. Just sayin'." Luka shot her a questioning look, her cerulean eyes flicking downwards towards Lily's hands before looking back up in confusion. "Gah man, just go! Time's running out, dude."

After a final look at the clock to confirm Lily's words (ten to two, and Luka had forgotten where studio 2 even was…), Luka dashed out of the room without a word, the door creaking shut behind her.

Lily smirked.

Time to start snooping.

Just as she moved to pick up Luka's bag, which was filled with anything and everything Luka needed to survive, she felt a little ping in her heart. Was that… guilt, she could feel? Shame, maybe?

 _Meh_ , the thought, the ping disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. _Luka won't care._

With a shrug, the mischievous blonde picked up the white messenger bag and unzipped it, eager to see its contents. Instead of carefully sifting through all of its contents and being careful not to misalign anything like a normal person would, Lily decided it'd be much more efficient to dump it all out over the grey carpet.

Not a second after having the thought, the bag was tossed to the side, landing somewhere near the bin on the other side of the room. Grinning, Lily spread everything out and clasped her hands together. Quickly, she scanned all of Luka's belongings with her eyes, her shoulders falling slightly.

Damn, Luka was a pretty boring person.

Lily thought that she might've found some fun stuff, but it was only the basics. There was a purse (filled with about 5,000 yen in various notes and coins, along with a couple of odd cards), a fortune reading "big luck" ( _that turned out to be true_ , thought Lily), Luka's (heavily scratched, new) phone, a pair of earbuds, some pads, a planner (which was filled with so many words in the smallest handwriting ever that Lily didn't even try read it), a scrunched-up business card ( _those colours look familiar_ , thought Lily as she rubbed her chin), some deodorant, and some of those cute little packets of tissues they give out for free at the malls.

Scratching her head, Lily sighed. She hoped to find something fun in there, like… a vibrator, or something. But Luka was as fun as the sun was cold.

Heaving herself up onto her feet, she kicked all Luka's boring stuff into the bag, muttering about how no-one was fun these days. As she kicked the planner, it fell open to a page adorned with a massive sticker of Miku.

Lily bit her lip as an excited look spread across her face. _Finally, something juicy!_

She picked up the planner and held it to her face, desperately trying to turn Luka's scrawl into something she could go and gush about to her stuffed animals at home. It was hard (oh so very, very hard), but she managed to read enough of it to figure out that Luka was helplessly in love with Miku.

Lily, she had to admit, was a teeny, tiny bit surprised. She couldn't say she'd met any gay people before, but Luka really didn't seem like the type, based off TV shows she'd seen and books she'd read. But, then again, she'd only just met Luka again after too many years of separation. Who knows? She might've even had a girlfriend at one point. Lily would gladly take any juicy info about Luka she could get.

The idea that Luka simply admired Miku disappeared as quickly as it came. 'Cos who calls someone-who-they-simply-admire's eyes "just so deep and rich and the perfect colour" and says their voice is "the thing that gives me life"? Lily giggled. The Luka writing in the planner about Miku was nothing like the Luka she knew, and Lily thought she knew all the Luka's pretty well.

Wiping a hand over her head out of giddiness, Lily tilted her head up towards the white ceiling. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the clock, and Lily gasped. It read ten past two.

Hurriedly, Lily swiped everything into the bag, not caring how it was organised. Desperately shoving all of it in, she zipped the bag up and whacked it back to its previous position under the desk.

She pulled out her phone and opened Facebook, pretending to snoop about on people's profiles to convince Luka that nothing suspicious had been going on and that no-one had gone through her personal belongings while she was gone.

Minutes passed, Lily keeping both her eyes on the door as she waited for Luka to come back. Her face gradually scrunched up as the clock ticked by, the blonde growing more and more pissed off with her pink-haired friend.

With a frustrated sigh, she threw the phone down and went over to the door and locked it, before heading over to Luka's bag and pulling the planner back out again. If she was stuck in Luka's boring-ass workplace for however long it took her to go to some random studio across the corridor and back, Lily might as well get some reading done.

After only thirty seconds of trying to decipher Luka's virtually illegible handwriting, she heard the doorknob jiggle, a series of rushed knocks following straight after.

Groaning like the teenager she used to be, Lily heaved herself up and threw Luka's planner into her bag, kicking it far under the desk. Her feet dragging heavily, she half-heartedly unlocked the door before collapsing onto the beanbag chair.

"Lily," started Luka, frantically shutting the door behind her. "Why did you lock the door?" Lily smirked. Luka's face was red with anger, and Lily was thrown back to her childhood.

"Meh, I dunno," she said simply, and stood up, her joints clicking as she stretched. "C'mon, let's go. I'm bored of this room. Better than your room, though. Dude, you need to fill yours with fun stuff when you get the chance. Like slushie maker. Or an ice cream maker. Or a bookshelf filled with loads of manga. Or-"

"Okay, I get the picture," said Luka, rolling her eyes as she moved to pick up her bag from under the desk. As she slung it over her left shoulder, Lily sweatdropped, her muscles growing tenser with every passing second.

Lily practically died when she saw Luka open the bag and rummage through it. Luka couldn't be _that_ thick and not notice that everything was a complete mess, could she?

"...Okay. Let's go. There's this new ice-cream shop Kaito said was really nice in town." Luka pulled her phone and her purse out of the bag, and headed towards the door.

Lily's eyebrow twitched. Luka wasn't being serious, right? Like, she _actually_ didn't notice that her bag looked like a little tiny elephant had stampeded in it?

"Are you okay, Lily?" asked Luka, eyes filled with concern for her friend.

"Yeah, yeah, why?" she blurted, the picture of all that was innocent.

Chuckling nervously, Luka said, "Well, you seem a bit off today."

"Psh, nah, you're seeing stuff." With a renewed supply of energy, Lily pulled Luka out the room, the door clicking shut behind them, racing off to the ice-cream shop before any of the stern men and women in suits could spot them.

Lily'd ask Luka about her planner later. But she'd have to blend it in smoothly with the conversation. Like, she couldn't just go and start interrogating her like she was the prime suspect of a murder case. No, she'd have to ease it in gently, so Luka wouldn't know that she went through her bag. She could just start talking about their favourite songs and bring Miku up in that conversation. Or she could just ask her if she had a crush on anyone. That was a normal enough conversational topic, right?

After almost tripping over the carpet, Lily stopped her train of thought. Thinking was hard. She should stop thinking. She'd end up flat on her face if she didn't.

She'll think of something… later.

* * *

"So, Luka," said the blonde, nudging her empty tub of honey-flavoured ice-cream to the side with her elbow, "tell me, who's your favourite singer?"

"Miku." Luka didn't hesitate for even a millisecond before giving her answer.

Lily grinned. "Do you, like, just like her songs, or do you _like_ like her?"

To Lily's surprise, Luka just smirked as she swallowed the ice-cream in her mouth. "I love how you say ' _like_ like' like it's something important."

Confusedly, Lily furrowed her eyebrows. "Eh? Romance is important! It's about finding the person you're gonna spend the rest of your life with!"

Like she was looking at a child, Luka sighed pitifully. "Well, yeah, it's sort of important, but it's not the only thing life revolves around. You don't just get a boyfriend or girlfriend and treat everyone else like they're not worthy of your time or something. That's stupid."

Lily groaned. "Dude, you're taking all this way too seriously. I only asked you if you liked Miku! No need to get all phorisifucal on me now."

"...You mean philosophical?" Luka chirped, giving Lily an unbelieving look.

"You're really just trying to avoid the subject now, aren't ya." Just before Luka could reply to Lily's statement, her phone went off, the ringtone set as the instrumental bit of one of Miku's early hits, "Rolling Girl".

Lily's jaw dropped. Sighing, Lily frantically gestured at the stoic-faced Luka, trying to make admit to her undying love for the pop star. Her eyebrow twitching slightly, Luka ignored her, taking the call right in front of Lily's face.

The blonde smacked her head on the table as Luka greeted the other person. "Hello?"

Not wanting to be left out of the conversation, Lily made a phone shape with her hand and, slowly and deliberately, pulled it away from her ear, before pressing down on one of her finger knuckles. Luka shot her a disappointed look as she spoke to the other person.

"Um, I'm not too sure, really…" she said, looking around the room as if looking for something.

Lily stared at her intently, sending a mental message to Luka with the power of childhood friendship. _What are they on about?_ she sent, confident that her message would reach the pinkette.

Luka eyed the blonde, the unfaltering stare she was giving her unnerving her slightly. After no less than thirty-three seconds of having her soul ripped apart by the bright, blue eyes did Luka physically turn her chair around to shelter her naked insides from the blonde's unfaltering gaze. "I can be there tomorrow if you- Oh, um… Can you give me a moment, please? Thanks!"

Turning her chair back around to face Lily, who was enamoured with the stand the menu was placed in, Luka pulled the phone away from her ear. "Lily, what can I do for the song cover artwork?"

Confusedly, Lily pulled her head up and narrowed her eyes at her friend. "Don't you, like, need to be there for you to tell them that?"

"Yeah, but they need to make a mock-up now, so they can do it properly tomorrow."

With an understanding nod, Lily grabbed a napkin with a little bit of ice-cream in the corner and nabbed a pen from the podium next to their booth and started drawing. Luka watched as Lily drew, surprised that her friend was actually pretty good at drawing.

Actually, no. Luka stood corrected.

"Pretty good" was a massive understatement.

"Woah, Lily…" she breathed, "you're amazing at art."

Her chin raised in pride, Lily grinned, an eyebrow twitched. "Well, of course I am, Luka dearest! So, likey or no likey?"

"I love it." Lily had drawn a cartoon-version of Luka in a flowing, sleeveless white dress that went down to her knees, matched somewhat oddly with a pair of black cowboy-style boots and a flower headband. Sat on a wooden chair, she had her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs protectively, a red string tied around her pinky finger and trailing off to the red-hand side of the artwork. 'Just Be Friends' was emblazoned on the top of the cover in block capitals, with 'Megurine Luka' just underneath it.

Luka was in love.

"My gosh, Lily, you need to do the actual art for the song," begged Luka, pleadingly looking into her eyes.

Scoffing, Lily waved her off. "Soz, dude, but no can do. Affiliated with Internet Co., aren't I? I can't say I thoroughly, like, _read_ the contract, but I'm not sure they'd be too pleased if I went and helped a rival company get sales."

Luka rested her head on her hand, a small pout on her face. Just as she sucked in a breath to declare her sadness at the blonde's refusal, Lily exhaled loudly, smacking her palms down onto the table, knocking over the little menu stand.

" _Fiiiiiiiine_ ," she groaned, like a defeated teenager. "I'll just use, like, a pseudonym to draw your art. As long as you don't go and tattle on me, we should be good. The cops'll never know," she whispered as she lowered her head and raised an eyebrow sneakily.

Luka leaned back on her chair, a small smile on her face, hiding an emotion Lily couldn't identify.

Lily sat up and gave her a look. "What? Don't tell me you're gonna go and get me arrested now? Just, like, tell 'em to keep the money they wanna pay me. I'm cool with just doing it for you, Lukesies."

Shaking her head, Luka said, "No, I'm just surprised you knew what a pseudonym was."

Throwing herself back into the plastic chair, Lily rolled her eyes and chuckled. "Dude, you don't even give me credit for the stuff I deserve."

Amused, Luka chuckled. "I'll pay for your ice-cream."

"Deal, dude. Deal."

* * *

Groaning, Luka plopped down into the luxuriously soft desk chair she just had added to her room, already pulling the boots off of her surely blistered feet. That advert shoot was _intense_. The tired pinkette dearly hoped that she'd never have to see that foreboding, blank white room ever again in her life, because, if she did, she was sure she'd go mental.

She rubbed her feet, wincing slightly at how tender they felt. In her heeled, black boots, she had been forced to stand in literally the same position, mouthing the exact same lyrics for three hours straight, her face caked in about three inches of makeup as bright lights gave her and only her their utmost attention, all the while a plastic smile was glued onto her features.

Her feet hurt.

Her face hurt.

Her brain hurt.

Her whole being hurt.

And, a fact which dawned upon her as she opened up her calendar app, she'd have to put up with it for at least the next three days.

Oh, joy.

Lobbing the despicable device across and onto the beanbag chair, the pinkette felt an imaginary tear roll down her cheek as she absorbed the information. Although it shouldn't have been possible, the next few days were going to be even more hectic than the past few. Photoshoots, recording (because apparently some of the tracks Luka had recorded weren't good enough for Crypton, for which she sheepishly apologised for), video shoots, songwriting, singing practice, guitar practice, shadowing producers, dance classes… Call her naive, but Luka didn't expect there to be _this_ much work behind being a pop star. Of course, she expected _some_ work to go into it, but she was certain that her parents earned more than she did and, no offence to them, they didn't seem to work that hard at all…

A phone call interrupted her peace and quiet. Fed up, she contemplated just leaving the phone she now despised where it should be - out of sight and out of mind - before defeatedly groaning and heading across the room, wincing as her sore feet had to put up with the crushing weight her body for even longer. She didn't even bother walking back to her new desk chair; the lumpy beanbag chair looked more than satisfactory for her exhausted body at that moment.

Stifling a yawn, Luka rested her forehead on her palm, blindly answering the call and drawing the phone to her right ear. "Hello?" she greeted unenthusiastically, on the verge of falling asleep then and there.

"Luka-san? It's me, Ryo," said her manager, his voice too cheery through the small speaker for Luka's liking. "I'm just calling to say that we might have to postpone doing work on your other single for a few weeks."

This news made Luka start. She sat up, cracking her back as she leaned against the wall. "Can I ask why?" she asked, forcing the bitterness out of her voice. For some reason, Luka didn't feel like she could trust the Yamada brothers fully, and had kept some of her stiffness while talking to them. As much as she wanted to believe it wasn't because of personal reasons and was entirely due to the fact that they were her seniors, she wasn't one to lie to herself.

"Miku's coming back from her tour next week, and we'll need you two to meet," he said as if he was commenting on the weather.

Luka felt the phone slip from her hand and heard the telltale bounce on the beige carpet, before scrambling to pick it up. Suddenly, this particular Yamada brother had shot up in the ranking of people she liked. "U-Um, meet? L-Like, with Miku? Just the t-two of us?" she stuttered into the phone. She was in too much shock to even think about blushing at her awkwardness.

Ryo laughed. "Yes, to fulfill the other half of the contract we made with you. So, since we're practically done with it, we plan on releasing 'Just Be Friends' at midnight on Saturday for the chart show on Sunday, while the other single will have to wait until we're done with this single with Miku."

Forget the other single. Who cares? It wouldn't have ended up as popular as this single with Miku surely would. Luka could feel the drool run down her chin at the thought of meeting Miku in real life.

"Luka-san?" asked Ryo, sounding worried, probably over the fact that Luka hadn't said anything. "We could always move the duet back if you'd rather release both singles first-"

"No no no," denied Luka, her voice the personification of an excited puppy, "I'm totally happy with Miku."

"That's settled, then," he said. Luka heard some clicks of a computer mouse in the background. "I've sent you an updated schedule. I'll see you tomorrow, Luka-san. Oh, but-" started the man, not even getting the words out before Luka hung up on him and raced to open the calendar app. She'd call him back later, after she'd taken in what she'd just heard. Definitely.

Her leg bounced involuntarily as she waited for the page to refresh, getting more and more restless by the second.

Finally, it happened, her previously-hectic calendar emptied for the next week, the days after that replaced by not more than two tasks on any given day. Her eyes darted over the text: writing the song, recording, _getting to know each other sessions_ (Luka felt faint then and there) and even extra days off at the same time as Miku.

Shakily locking her phone, she let it fall onto the beanbag chair beside her and slid down until she was rather ungracefully resting on her back, her hands shielding her eyes from the bright ceiling light.

She, Megurine Luka, would meet Hatsune Miku, her idol.

... _This_ , she thought, her eyes closing as she drifted to sleep, _will be the best day of my life._ And with that, Luka fell into a heavenly world filled with the thoughts of a bright future. _Nothing can stop me now._

* * *

 **A/N:** ha xD no-one remembers this fic... oopth ':D I swear, someone punch me if I leave this alone for more than 8 months ever again. Like, actually. I'll allow you to. I'd deserve it ;-;

Thank you for the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate all of them :3 That said, I'd love it if you left a review down below!

Thanks!


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